He caught my eye and smiled, but he looked more tired than I'd ever seen him, even more tired than he had on Wednesday afternoon when Dad walked out. His face was all creased and baggy, like the framework underneath was rusting away. 'All right, then, Olly,' he said. 'We have a bargain. Now . . .' He got his keys out of his pocket, unlocked one of the low cupboards and took out the book. He held it for a moment, looking down at the photo, and then passed it to me without a word.

'Thank you,' I said.

'You're right,' Granddad said. 'What harm can it do?'

I opened my mouth, but he wasn't expecting an answer. I wanted him to pat my shoulder, or kiss me goodnight, or say something so that I knew I wasn't in trouble, but he turned away and propped himself against the desk, watching the rain spray the window. It was getting dark.

I waited until I knew he wasn't going to look at me, and then I left.

As I shut the door behind me, I heard Granddad say quietly, 'Stop being stupid, Oliver. What harm can it do? The man's been dead for nigh on sixty years.'

I turned round, confused, but he wasn't talking to me. He was still looking out of the window, staring into his own reflected eyes.

I went upstairs, trembling, holding the book in my arms like it was alive. I was filled with an odd mixture of shame and triumph because Granddad had given in and I'd won.

I sat on my bed, opened the book, and started to read.

On June 21st 1936, at half past five in the morning, a motorcycle and its rider hurtled along the long, straight road that still runs from Falconhurst in East Sussex north-east towards Tunbridge Wells. It was already a clear, sunny day. In that era the traffic along the quiet country roads was minimal, and it would have been unusual even startling to meet another vehicle, especially so early in the morning, on a Sunday. The road holds no other surprises or hazards for the driver, stretching as it does for several miles without unexpected changes in direction or gradient. It was also well-known to the motorcyclist who rode along it that morning: his familiar, habitual route to the nearest town. We know, from evidence I will examine later, that he was travelling at no more than 38 mph; we also know that he was ordinarily a careful driver, averse to taking unnecessary risks.

Why, in the early hours of that glorious summer morning, H. J. Martin should have crashed his motorcycle in such a violent impact that he was apparently flung several metres from the machine and been killed instantly, we simply do not know.

There are other, secondary, questions that surround his death. We do not know, for example, where he was going; indeed, we do not know the direction in which he was travelling. We do not know why he was travelling so early in the morning, or where he had been. We do not know whether he met another vehicle on the road, or whether the boy who discovered his body under a tree next to the road and alerted the police was the first person to learn of the accident. We cannot even be sure that he was travelling alone.

These are not questions which I can answer. They are not, perhaps, questions that will ever be answered. But to me, and to all the other biographers of H. J. Martin, they are an incisive reminder of the enigmas which make him both a fascinating and an elusive subject. The ease with which Martin's life has achieved the status of myth to the extent that the contemporary military historian S. S. Hamley remembers being told by his father that 'H. J. Martin would come back, if we needed him, like King Arthur' has in part been increased by the circumstances of his fatal accident. But there is an element of the reverse: that while the mystery of Martin's death satisfied a collective desire for intrigue, it was the interest aroused by his life that created that desire in the first place; that a solitary, violent, perplexing death was felt to be a fitting end for the hero who had so inhabited the imagination of the British public.

What died that morning was not simply a celebrity, a man who had made a name for himself first on the vast battlefield of the Middle East and then in the smaller, more intricate spheres of politics, academia and literature. Neither was he merely, as the politician Dominick Medina said, 'a piece of the old England'. H. J. Martin was indeed an icon a living metaphor, as it were, for 'the old England', the last avatar of Victorian Boy's Own heroism but he was also an extraordinarily complex figure, a man who told and retold his own story so inconsistently and ambiguously that he seemed to occupy a no-man's-land between truth and fiction. Martin was not only a magnetic, charismatic, seductive personality, but a man whose life seems to embody the spirit of empire, of danger, of history itself . . .

I wasn't a very quick reader in those days. By the time I got to the end of that first section it was late and I'd missed dinner. I knew Granddad would've kept some for me, but I wasn't hungry. I had a hot, sick feeling in my stomach. I couldn't believe it. All this fuss, for this! It was just history. It was the kind of book Granddad wrote. I reread the last sentence. Martin was not only . . . whose life seems to embody . . . history itself . . .

Then I threw the book across the room as hard as I could. It hit the wall with a thump and dropped into the corner behind my laundry basket.

A few days later Rosina picked it up when she was cleaning and put it on my bookshelf. But I never opened it again.

III.

Dear Dad, thank you for the book you bought me, it was very good. Granddad gave it back to me because I asked. I read it I have just finished reading it. I hope your flight home back to Sydney was good. I like aeroplanes.

I am doing well at school, we had a test in history and I got 89% which was good. I got a commendation because I knew when the 1st World War was.

When are you coming I really liked meeting you, I hope you did too. I am sorry it would be nice My Christmas holidays start on Wednesday and I have until the 6th of January.

How are you? I hope you are well. How is your job? It sounded very fun when you told me about it. My best friend Adeel says you can go scuba diving in Cornwall.

Love from Oliver .

Dear Dad, I hope you are well, and had a good Christmas. Me and Granddad had a good Christmas. I got a new games console and some games. My favourite is called DARK CLOUD: ENIGMA. Rosina gave me some money and a box of chocolates. What did you get? Do you have lots of friends in Sydney?

I am still doing alright at school. I am not very good at French because we drop things out of windows. Me and Adeel dropped everyone's textbooks out of the window the last day of term. Adeel says its more French and educational if we say ooh la la! while we do it. Granddad told me off. but he said de Gaulle would be proud of us.

How are you? Is it good weather there? I expect it is much nicer than England at the moment because it is summer. Maybe you could I hope you are well.

Love from Oliver .

Dear Dad, Happy Easter! I hope you are well. I've just broken up for Easter and Granddad is taking me to Italy but I have two weeks holiday and I am spending the second week at home in London. How are you? I hope you are okay.

I hope you don't mind me writing to you. I don't have very much to say but I am fine. Please write soon.

Love from Oliver .

Dear Dad, Could you tell me if this is the right address for you?

Dear Dad, Please will you answer my letters because I want to know if you're dead.

Dear Dad, I know it's been a while since I last wrote. I'm hoping this is the right address for you, because, as you know, you never wrote back. But all I can do is hope that you'd have the decency to tell me if you'd moved, or if you wanted me to stop writing, so here we go, I'm writing to you anyway. If you've managed to earn enough money to buy a phone, then you could even ring on +44 208 779 6454. I'm still at the same address. You know, the one where Granddad shouted at you and you walked out without saying goodbye. Remember?

I don't have much to tell you. I did OK in my GCSEs (mainly A's and B's. I expect Granddad told you, because he at least takes your paternal responsibilities seriously). I'm taking a couple of A-level modules this summer, but my main exams aren't until the end of sixth form.

Sixth form is OK, although the girl I was going out with last year left to go to another school, and we've kind of drifted apart. I liked her, but we don't see each other much, and I think she's seeing someone else now. It's fine, though. (My mate Adeel was really jealous when I asked her out and she said yes. He said that she'd gone for style over substance, although when I told her that she said it was more like mind over matter. I couldn't tell whether that was meant to be an insult.) Oh, by the way, you remember that book you bought me? The only thing you've ever given me, in sixteen years? (Did I mention that my birthday is the 3rd of July? Not that you'd care.) I told you I'd read it and it was really good. Well, actually, I didn't read it at all. It was really boring. I don't know why you even bothered to buy it for me. Let me know if this is the right address and you can have it back.

Anyway. I won't bore you any longer. I don't know why I'm writing this, really, as I know you won't reply. Maybe you're dead. Or maybe you want me to think you are. Whatever.

Your son, Oliver .

It was all wrong, but I sent it anyway.

That was the day I got home from school and found Granddad celebrating. You could hear the music some classical thing, Mozart or someone playing from halfway down the street. That day we'd had a school trip to the British Museum and I was in a strange mood; I didn't feel like talking to anyone, even Granddad. I was going to go straight upstairs to change my clothes but Granddad flung the kitchen door open and called, 'Olly! How are you? Duly edified by our national treasures, I trust?' He'd turned the music down a bit, but he still had to raise his voice. He looked flushed and excited.

I paused on the bottom stair. 'Shouldn't you be working, Granddad?'

'Good news. I'm celebrating. Come and have a drink.'

He grinned at me and my bad mood receded. How many of my friends got home to their legal guardian playing music too loud and plying them with drink? I said, 'OK,' and followed him back into the kitchen. There were piles of CDs on the kitchen table, an overflowing ashtray, and a half-empty glass of something fizzy. 'What's the occasion?'

He pulled the fridge door open just slightly too enthusiastically; the jars rattled and clinked ominously. 'Champagne, my boy?'

He only ever called me that when he was drunk. Or tight, as he'd say I'm a trifle tight this evening, my boy. I'd told him once that tight didn't mean that any more but he was still sober enough to get the Oxford English Dictionary out and teach me the error of my ways.

'Thanks.' I watched him pour it; it looked like it wasn't the first bottle. 'I thought we only had champagne on Sundays.'

'High days and holy days. They're going to publish Arthur.' Granddad handed the glass to me with a flourish.

'Who's Arthur?'

'My book on King Arthur, Oliver. The one I've been working on. And talking about, every evening, for a year or so. The pinnacle of my life's work. The one '

'Oh, yeah, that one. Congratulations.' I raised my glass to him and took a mouthful of champagne. It was cold and slightly sour, like fizzy water.

For a second Granddad carried on smiling at me: the huge, unlikely, lighthouse-beam grin that seemed to extend beyond the actual edge of his face. It was irresistible; I couldn't help smiling back. He lit a cigarette, sauntered over to the CD player, and turned the volume down so we could talk without having to shout.

He still had his back to me when he said, 'Oh, and there's a book tour for it in the summer. In the United States and Canada.'

'Fantastic,' I said. 'How long for?'

'Hopefully a month or so, Robin said. Starting in New York, then moving west. The details aren't fixed yet.'

'Great.' I'd never been to America. I took another swig of champagne. 'When's it start?'

'June.' Granddad reached over and plucked an olive from a plastic tub balanced on the nearest pile of CDs.

'What about my exams?'

Granddad paused, the olive poised between finger and thumb a few centimetres from his mouth. 'Well, you don't need me to be here, do you?'

I took the largest gulp of champagne that I could, and felt a trickle of something wet slide down from the corner of my mouth. After I'd swallowed I said, 'No. 'Course not.'

'I'll send you an appropriate present.'

'Right.' I watched him eat his olive. It was one of the ones Rosina liked, the ones that came in a tub with bits of soggy garlic and lemon peel. I hated them but Rosina bought them anyway.

'You're not bothered, are you, Olly?' He wiped his fingers on the tablecloth.

'No. Of course not. I'm fine. I'm pleased for you.'

'I've been away before. And you are, after all, an exceptionally independent and resourceful young man.'

I wanted to say, Yeah, and it's just as well, don't you think? I wanted to say, Only because I have to be, because everyone keeps going away, or dying if they're not dead already. I wanted to say, No, I'm not, Granddad. Stay, please stay I know it's babyish . . .

I shrugged and made myself smile.

He frowned and peered at me, absently tapping the ash off his cigarette on to the table. I watched a few dark grey flecks drift down into the tub of olives. 'Rosina will be here, of course '

'I said I'm fine. It's not a big deal.' And the funny thing was, it shouldn't have been a big deal. It was only a month. And I was sixteen, for God's sake, it wasn't like I needed someone to hold my hand.

Granddad picked another olive out of the tub. It had grey speckles of cigarette ash on it, but I didn't say anything, just watched him put it in his mouth. As he was chewing he said, 'Good lad. I knew I could rely on you to be a man about it.'

''Course,' I said. 'I like being on my own.' Don't go, I thought, please, Granddad, and for a sickening moment I wasn't sure if I'd said it aloud.

'Excellent. We can work out the details with Rosina later. About meals and and laundry and so on.' He beamed again, but impersonally, as if he was suddenly very fond of the kitchen wall.

I drained my champagne. It couldn't have gone flat in that time, but that's how I remember it: tasteless and still, like tap water. I put the glass down on the table. 'Great. Well. Congratulations. Again. Right. I'm going upstairs.'

'Oh I thought I might open another bottle.'

'I've got school tomorrow.'

'Bugger that.' Granddad lit another cigarette off the end of the last one. 'You're sure?'

'Yeah.' I thought, Just once, just once I'd like someone to tell me to go to bed. Not ask me, not suggest, not treat me like a responsible adult just tell me. I said, 'Goodnight, then. Don't set the house on fire.'

He looked at the clock above the bookshelf. 'It's five o'clock, Olly. You're not ill, are you?'

'I didn't mean goodnight now, I just meant I'm going upstairs.'

'What time would you like dinner?'

'I'm not hungry.'

As I walked out I heard him start to say, 'Very well, shall I save some?' but I carried on up the stairs without answering. I thought, I should be glad he's going. I should be glad he's well enough to go. I mean, bloody hell, he's nearly eighty, and all excited about getting his book published, and all I can think is, Please don't leave me on my own, like some pathetic kid. I said aloud, 'Jesus Christ, for God's sake, get a grip,' and tried to whistle the music from Granddad's CD.

When I got to my room I sat down at my desk and leant my face on my hands. I wasn't crying; just breathing deeply, trying to ease the ache in my throat. I said silently, It's not that I can't live on my own for a month. It's just that everyone goes. Everyone goes, and I'm sick of it.

I got out my mobile to phone Adeel, then put it on my desk, stared at it for a couple of seconds, and turned it off. Hi, Adeel, I'd say. My grandfather's going away for a month when we do our exams. And he'd say, Great! Let's have a party. We can do anything we want. You're so lucky not having any parents.

The pain in my throat swelled again and I swallowed, trying to force it away. Then I got my notebook out and started scribbling before I even thought about it. Dear Dad.

I knew even as I was writing it I knew the letter was all wrong. I'm still at the same address. You know, the one where Granddad shouted at you and you walked out without saying goodbye. Remember? But I carried on writing anyway, not rereading, not letting myself cross it out. I don't know why you even bothered to buy it for me. Let me know if this is the right address and you can have it back. That made me wince, but I left it as it was.

Anyway. I won't bore you any longer. I don't know why I'm writing this, really, as I know you won't reply. Maybe you're dead. Or maybe you want me to think you are. Whatever.

After I'd signed it I folded it up into a little thick square and shoved it into one of the posh envelopes I'd nicked off Granddad ages ago. I sealed it and scrawled the address on it and then put it in my bag, where I wouldn't stare at it and change my mind. I knew I shouldn't send it. But I was scared that if I didn't, sooner or later I'd write something even worse.