Читать книгу Moonshine - Victoria Clayton - Страница 10

‘Why are you dressed like that?’ Oliver had asked on the evening of the Conservative lunch at the Carlton House Hotel.

We were in the kitchen. I was wearing my mac buttoned to the neck while I washed up my mother’s supper tray.

‘I’m going out to dinner and I don’t want to splash my dress. It’s silk and even water marks it like crazy.’

‘What’s for supper?’

‘It’s called a navarin, but you’d better tell Father it’s lamb stew or he won’t eat it. It’s a classic French dish. It’s got peas and beans and turnips in it. It’s delicious, honestly.’

‘It doesn’t sound it.’

‘There’s Brown Betty with gooseberries for pudding.’

‘Oh, good. Custard or cream?’

‘Cream.’

‘Where’re you going?’

I took off the mac and examined my reflection in the mirror by the back door. My hair is naturally wavy and resists all attempts to tame it. I had fastened it back from my face with two combs. My eyelashes are dark, luckily, but I had thickened them with mascara. I had painted my lips with a colour called Black Pansy which I had found in the village shop. The deep red made my mouth look sulky but was effective, I thought, with my skin, which is pale. I fished the pink plastic case from my bag and applied a little more for good measure.

All the time I had been washing my hair and putting varnish on my nails I had been conscious that my blood was circulating a little faster. It was a measure of how miserable being at home was making me, I told myself, if going out to dinner with a man I knew nothing about, except that he had a job I rather despised and was married, could lift my spirits so dramatically. Not that the last was relevant. A Member of Parliament taking a single woman out to dinner in his own constituency could not afford the least breath of scandal. He would not dare to flirt with me. And even if he did, I was immune to his charms. Sarah and I had so often listed the reasons why it was certifiable madness to have anything to do with married men that we could have given public lectures on the subject.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Who’s taking you?’

‘A man called Burgo Latimer. Our new MP.’

‘Really? That sounds grim. What’s he like?’

‘He’s a Conservative but he’s not what you’d expect.’

‘What’s different about him?’

‘I don’t know, really. He isn’t dull, anyway. There’s the doorbell. Don’t tell Father anything about it. He won’t approve.’

‘What shall I say? He’s bound to give me the third degree if he thinks there’s a mystery.’

‘You’re the novelist. Make it up.’

Burgo was standing with his back to me when I opened the door. I had forgotten how tall he was.

‘Some good trees,’ he said, turning, ‘but if there’s one plant I can’t stand it’s the spotted laurel. It makes me think of a dread contagion. And you’ve got so much of it.’

After his telephone call I had tried to remember his face but could only be sure about his eyes which I knew were dark brown and his hair which was straight and of that extreme fairness – a sort of white-blond – that generally one sees on small children. It had the same juvenile texture, soft and untidy, and was, I guessed, worn a fraction too long for the conventional tastes of his female acolytes. His nose was finely shaped with arched nostrils, his mouth full. It might have been considered a slightly effeminate face but for the eyes. They were sharp, amused, combative.

‘We’ve practically got the National Collection of dingy shrubbery,’ I said.

I followed him down the steps to where an enormous black car stood on the gravel.

I was relieved he hadn’t expected to be invited in for drinks with my family. It seemed this was an opportunity to soft-soap the voters that he was willing to write off. Or perhaps he knew that even if he had snubbed my father, made a pass at my mother and taken an axe to the furniture, Cutham Hall would always be a staunchly Conservative household.

‘You can starve a laurel,’ I continued, ‘leave it unpruned for years then hack it to the ground, but it’s almost impossible to kill it. It’s difficult to love something that can be thoroughly abused and taken for granted. You need a little uncertainty. The feeling that you have to nurse the guttering flame.’

‘And this is so true of love between humans.’

A man in a real chauffeur’s uniform, grey piped with blue, which would have made Brough horribly jealous, had rushed round the car to hold open the rear door nearest the steps. Burgo went round to the other side and slid in beside me.

‘This is Simon,’ said Burgo, when the driver returned to his seat. ‘He drives me when I’m in Sussex. Miss Pickford-Norton.’

‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I don’t use the hyphen. I call myself Roberta Norton. Or, more often, Bobbie.’

‘How democratic,’ said Burgo.

‘Pickford is my mother’s maiden name. My father added it on when they married. It’s a bit of a tongue-twister.’

Also I thought, but did not say, that it was an embarrassing piece of social climbing on my father’s part. He liked to talk of the Pickfords of Cutham Hall as though they had lived there for centuries instead of barely a hundred years. And he kept quiet about the pickling.

‘I like Roberta, though. Pretty and old-fashioned. Bobbie doesn’t suit you at all. Step on it, Simon. We don’t want to be late.’

Simon spun the wheels on the gravel and we shot away. The suspension was so good that one hardly noticed the potholes.

‘Where are we going?’

‘A place called Ladyfield. You won’t have heard of it. It’s about fifteen miles from here.’

Burgo leaned forward and closed the glass partition that separated the front from the back.

‘Obviously you don’t worry about appearing democratic.’ I admired the acres of polished walnut and quilted leather. The back seat was the size of a generous sofa and you could have fitted a dining table and chairs into the space for our legs.

‘Simon won’t mind being excluded. He’s thrilled to be asked to drive fast. He doesn’t often get the chance.’

‘I really meant, this is an opulent car.’

‘It isn’t mine. It belongs to Simon. He’s a dedicated Conservative so he lets me have the use of it at a reasonable rate. It doesn’t do me any harm to be conspicuous but the real reason I like it is because I can stretch my legs and sleep off the coronation chicken on my way back to London.’ He extended them as he spoke and they were, indeed, unusually long. ‘When Simon’s not driving me about he makes a living ferrying brides to and from church at a stately crawl.’

This explained the powerfully sweet aroma of scent and hairspray that clung to the upholstery. I opened the window a fraction.

Burgo leaned forward and picked something from the floor. ‘There you are. Confetti.’ He handed me some scraps of silver paper, then swayed towards me as Simon took a tight bend at speed. The draught from the open window blew the tiny bell and the horseshoe from my hand. ‘I find all sorts of things in here.’ He looked in the ashtray and then felt along the edge of the seat. ‘There you are.’ He showed me a lace handkerchief, crumpled into a ball. ‘It’s still damp with tears. At least I hope it’s tears. Once I found a garter. Another time a copy of Tropic of Capricorn with the spicier sections marked. Last week I found a photograph of a young man torn in two. Themes for a whole book of short stories.’

‘Don’t you ever drive yourself?’

‘I don’t have a licence. I gave up after the fifth attempt to pass my test. I offered the last man a bribe but he still refused to pass me. I found it reassuring, in a way, that he was incorruptible. My temperament isn’t suited to driving. I get bored and my mind wanders. In London I take taxis. It’s an opportunity to hear what people really think, talking to people who don’t know I’m an MP. Naturally the cabbies all have strong views on politics and are usually much further to the right than I am.’

‘My father seems to think you’re practically a Marxist.’

‘In theory I approve of some elements of Marxism but I disapprove of despotism, which is the only way you can implement it, humans being so unequal. History’s shown us that Marxism and Fascism have a lot in common. Both systems rely on collective brainwashing to educate the populace and extreme brutality to crush rebellion. And that’s positively my last word this evening about politics. You’ve told me unequivocally that you hate them and I’ve had enough of them today to satisfy the most ardent politicophile.’

‘I like political history, though. Distance lends enchantment.’

‘What do you really like?’ He slid lower in his seat, folded his arms and turned his head to rest his chin on his left shoulder to look at me. ‘What makes you want to get up in the morning?’

Meeting his eyes, observant, curious, humorous, I felt a moment of disquiet, almost alarm. What was I doing speeding through the countryside to an unknown destination with this man who was a stranger? Reality is so different from one’s imagining. Getting dressed alone in my bedroom, I had felt excited and confident. Now Burgo was beside me, I felt oddly uncertain of myself and almost wished myself safely back in the gloomy dining room at Cutham.

‘Well.’ I looked down at the little heap of multicoloured confetti near his shoe and attempted to restore my composure by giving my attention fully to the question. ‘Breakfast, for one thing. I usually wake up hungry. And extremes of weather. Not only sun but snow and wind, too. I even like wet days if it’s a proper deluge. That’s the only thing I don’t like about living in London: you hardly notice the seasons, except as an inconvenience. Nature’s confined to a few dusty plane trees growing out of holes in the pavement. I really love flowers and gardens. But London parks are too tidy. And I hate African marigolds.’ Careful, I thought, you’re starting to gabble. Don’t let him see you’re nervous. If only he’d stop looking at me. I put up my hand to check the combs in my hair, then was annoyed with myself for fidgeting. ‘I’d always be willing to get up to see the first bud open of an oriental poppy called Cedric Morris. It’s the most subtle shade of greyish pink.’ Now you’re sounding like a plant dictionary. Stupid, stupid. ‘And I nearly always want to get up for work. I work for an auction house. I used to be in the antique textile department but last year I moved to porcelain. There’s always the chance that something good’s going to be brought in for valuation or to be sold. I can’t often afford to bid for anything myself but just to see something beautiful – to touch it – gives me pleasure.’

‘What do you call beautiful?’

‘Practically anything that’s eighteenth century. Ignoring the smells and the lack of antibiotics and dentistry, Angelica Kauffmann seems to me to have led the most enviable life. She was prodigiously talented and got to see most of the wonderful houses and gardens and exquisite furniture of the age.’

‘Ah yes, she was a painter.’

‘And absolutely on a par with the men. Sir Joshua Reynolds was a great admirer. Have you seen her work at Frogmore?’

‘No. But I shall, now you’ve put me on to it. Do you paint?’

‘In an amateur way. The need to earn a living is my excuse for not being better at it. But the truth is that I can’t make up my mind what I like best. Textiles, fans and objets de vertu are passions but I’m equally besotted by porcelain, especially Chelsea and Longton Hall. As for early English walnut furniture …’ I made a sound expressive of longing.

‘Describe an average day.’

I told him about my job. Now I was on familiar territory I grew calmer. I felt a brief return of my London self. I was used to working with male colleagues, to being as much at ease with men as with women and confident that I knew what I was talking about most of the time. Burgo was a good listener. He gave me his whole attention and asked the right questions. I relaxed and wondered what had made me lose my nerve in that absurd way. It must be Cutham that disagreed with me.

‘I like the idea of a life spent in pursuit of beauty,’ Burgo said.

‘Is that the impression I’ve given? Well, perhaps. Some people would think that superficial. Cold and selfish. And subjective, of course.’

‘Only if they were thinking of beauty in its narrowest sense: the acquisition of fine objects. And even with material beauty, things must be honest, well conceived and well made to be beautiful. Keats said it succinctly enough in that wonderful sonnet. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” Or was it the other way round? When we come to abstractions – goodness, truth, unselfishness, charity, justice, fortitude – in practice they’re indivisible from one another and from beauty. I knew I’d like talking to you. You’re an enthusiast and so am I. About different things but that doesn’t matter. I like that dress. That is a subjective judgement. What do you call that colour?’

‘I don’t know. Pistachio, perhaps.’

‘Your eyes are almost the same colour, a mixture of green and grey with that ring of gold round the iris. I’ve never seen anything like them.’

‘I think you said your wife was in France? Is she on holiday?’

‘She spends a lot of time in Provence. She has a mas there with a few acres of vines. She likes heat.’

‘Does she make the wine herself?’

‘No. She has someone to do it for her. She prefers to read and sunbathe and sleep. Sometimes she goes for walks or entertains. Anna is not an enthusiast.’

‘It sounds a charmed life.’ I wanted to ask more about her but was afraid of sounding inquisitive.

He turned his head away to examine a handsome old house as we flew past. ‘I suppose it is. Are you married?’

‘Not even engaged. I once was for a week, then thought better of it. The awfulness of breaking it off and hurting someone I was fond of taught me a lesson: not to go into these things without being one hundred per cent certain. But as one can’t ever be that I may never get married. It seems such a terrible risk.’

‘That’s not the enthusiast talking. What about your parents?’

‘What about them?’

‘Happy marriage?’

‘No.’

Burgo refrained from drawing the obvious conclusion, for which I was grateful. He continued to look out of the window. Trees overhung the road. Occasionally a flash of fire from the setting sun shot between the leaves and stung my eyes. I closed them to prevent them watering. A minute went by without either of us saying anything. The silence felt comfortable now, as though we had reached some sort of understanding. Perversely, this feeling of intimacy, as though the usual social rules need not apply, made me determined to break it.

‘It’s so kind of you to take me out and give me this treat. But you must let me pay my share.’

He continued to look out of the window. ‘Are you afraid I shall call in the debt by demanding sexual favours?’

I kept my voice detached, though I was disconcerted. ‘Not in the least. A man intent on paying for such things with dinner doesn’t talk about his wife, unless of her imperfections.’

‘So you’re quite confident that what I want is your companionship for what would otherwise have been a lonely evening?’

‘Perfectly confident. Isn’t it possible for men and women to enjoy friendship with nothing else involved?’

Burgo did not reply but turned his head to look at me. It was not a flirtatious look. He did not smile or smoulder. There was no tenderness, no particular friendliness even. It was a look of simple interrogation, as though he wondered whether I meant him to give me a serious answer. I felt compelled to drop my eyes, conscious of a sudden acceleration of the heart.

‘Here we are,’ he said as Simon braked sharply and swung the car between a pair of iron gates.

‘Where?’

‘Ladyfield.’

An immaculately maintained drive was bordered on each side by a double row of limes. Beyond were park-like grounds dotted with stately trees.

‘Is it a private house?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will there be other guests?’

‘Eight more, I believe.’

I was almost annoyed to discover that we would be so well chaperoned. I had come near to making a fool of myself, thinking, as he had perhaps intended me to think because it amused him, that we would be having a cosy dinner à deux with the potential for advance and retreat that this implied. I caught his eye. He was smiling.

‘Won’t the people there think it odd? Thrusting a perfectly strange woman on them at the last minute, I mean?’

‘You don’t seem particularly strange to me.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Fleur won’t mind at all. I ought to say she’ll be delighted but that would be stretching it. I don’t know that she’s ever really delighted by people. She much prefers animals. This is where I stay when I’m in Sussex. When one of her guests rang to say she was ill, I told Fleur I’d invite you.’

‘Is it her house?’

‘Strictly speaking it’s Dickie’s. He’s her husband. It’s been in his family for a couple of generations.’

‘They seem to have prospered.’ I could not help comparing the grounds of Ladyfield with Cutham Hall, to the latter’s disadvantage.

The lights of the house appeared through the trees. The drive curved round in a circle to end before an early Georgian house of soft red brick. Ladyfield must have been built at roughly the same time as Cutham Hall but had escaped Victorian revision. The light was fading but I could see a well-proportioned façade with a pedimented portico, pilasters and a balustrade at roof level ornamented with urns. The half-glazed front door stood open.

‘Well?’ Burgo asked as we stood on the drive after Simon had driven the car away. ‘Like it?’

‘It’s enchanting!’

‘Let’s go in.’

The hall was painted a marvellous rich red, the perfect background for what seemed at a cursory glance to be good paintings. A cantilevered staircase curled round at the far end beneath a Venetian window. It was all quite grand but untidy. On the lovely, worn limestone floor a pair of gumboots stood beside a bowl containing pieces of meat. Beneath a side table was a dog basket from which trailed a filthy old blanket. A halter and a Newmarket rug were thrown over a chair. Burgo examined a pile of letters on the table. He picked up one and read it quickly, then threw it aside.

‘Nothing that can’t wait. Let’s get a drink. Then I’ll run up and change.’

We went into the drawing room. The walls were buff coloured and looked superb with the plasterwork, which was of a high quality and painted, in the correct manner, several shades of greyish-white. Burgo appeared at my side with a glass of something that fizzed.

‘What are you looking at so intently?’

‘Plasterwork’s a particular weakness of mine.’

‘Perhaps, after all, you are a strange woman.’

I stared at the painting above the fireplace. ‘Isn’t that a Turner?’

‘Is it?’

‘It’s an early one. Before he was bitten by cosmic mysticism. But you can see the hand of the master.’

‘You may be able to. I don’t know enough about it.’

‘Oh, I’m a novice myself when it comes to painting. That takes years and years of just looking.’

‘You beast!’ said a voice behind us. ‘I’ve been waiting and waiting for you. And then you choose just the moment I dash out to the stable to arrive.’

A girl, younger than me, I guessed, had come into the drawing room. She walked up to Burgo, threw her arms round his neck and pulled down his head so she could kiss him on the mouth. Burgo disengaged himself from her embrace and held her wrist in one hand while he pulled her ear with the other.

‘Roberta, this is Fleur,’ said Burgo. ‘My sister.’

‘Hello.’ Fleur gave me her hand. It was slightly sticky. ‘Sorry I wasn’t here to greet you. I’ve been drenching a colt. He’s got worms.’

Fleur was small and slender. Her hair was brown, her face soft and round like a child’s. Her eyes slanted up at the outer corners, like his, and had the same dark brilliance, but hers were vague and dreamy.

‘Where is everybody? I thought we’d be the last to arrive.’ Burgo poured a glass of champagne for his sister. She held the stem of the glass in a childish fist.

‘They’ve all come. Dickie took them out to see the Temple to Hygeia.’

‘Dickie’s in the process of repairing an old folly,’ Burgo said to me. ‘Dedicated to the goddess of health and cleanliness. I’m going to change.’

Before I could ask: Why cleanliness? he had gone. There were noises in the hall and then people in evening dress came into the drawing room. I felt a little shy, not only because they were all unknown to me but also because I was certain they must wonder what I was doing there. But my diffidence was as nothing to my hostess’s. She frowned, licked a finger and began to scrub at a mark on the skirt of her beaded dress.

‘You must be Roberta.’ A man with grizzled, receding hair shook my hand. He leaned upon a stick. ‘I’m Dickie. Charmed to see you. Any friend of Burgo’s … Can I give you a top-up?’ I accepted his offer of more champagne. ‘So nice of you to make up the numbers at the last minute,’ he continued. ‘It isn’t everyone one can ask; Homo sapiens is a sensitive, thin-skinned creature.’

‘Yes,’ I said. Then, feeling my reply to be inadequate, I added, ‘It certainly is!’

‘Glad you agree with me!’ The expression in his eyes above his half-moon spectacles was cordial. ‘I must quickly do the rounds with the booze. Fleur darling, look after Roberta. Catch up with you later.’

He limped away. I watched him talking to his friends. He was affable, gave a pat on the arm here, a peck on the cheek there, his pinkish face suffused with pleasure. Fleur abandoned the scrubbing of her dress but kept her eyes on the carpet, her mouth unsmiling.

‘Do tell me about your colt.’ I had once been the proud possessor of a piebald with a large head and short legs and had been to enough gymkhanas and pony-club dances to be able to maintain a horsy conversation without making an idiot of myself.

Fleur’s beautiful eyes met mine with sudden enthusiasm. ‘He’s nearly three and absolute heaven. Bright chestnut with white socks and a blaze. I’ve called him Kumara. It’s the name of a Hindu god. He’s got the most perfect action …’

While Fleur talked, the words coming quickly in a way that was already familiar to me, I speculated about what seemed a striking mismatch. What attractions, apart from a genial manner, had a man like Dickie for a lovely girl at least twenty years younger? He had a wonderful house and appeared to be well heeled, but Fleur did not seem the mercenary type.

‘And I’ve already lunged him twice …’

There was something endearing about the grubby fingernails and a definite tidemark round the neck, half-hidden by the expensive dress.

‘I’ve had a good offer for Kumara but nothing would persuade me to part with him. I love him best in all the world – after Burgo, naturally. But you can’t equate people and animals, can you? I mean, Kumara looks to me for everything. I know that sounds rather sad and selfish, having to be important to something. But Burgo doesn’t need me. He doesn’t need anyone. That doesn’t stop me loving him but it makes it rather one-sided.’

I looked across the room at Dickie, who was roaring with laughter at something he had just been told. He threw back his head and leaned more heavily on his stick to balance himself.

‘Children need you, I suppose for the first few years, anyway,’ I said.

Fleur’s expression changed. Her fine brows drew together and she flushed. ‘Probably they do.’ She grew silent.

Obviously I had put my foot in it. I wondered what the trouble was? Perhaps Dickie was too much of an invalid to … I cast about for a change of subject. ‘What sort of dogs do you have?’

‘I’ve got three. Looby, a black Labrador, Lancelot who’s a red setter and King Henry. He’s a stray, a mixture of Alsatian and poodle, I think.’

Fleur told me the provenance of each dog, their likes and dislikes and particular charms. It ought to have been excruciatingly dull but actually I enjoyed Fleur’s artless confiding style. It was like being with an old friend with whom no pretence is necessary.

‘Darling, you haven’t said a word to Benedict and you know how hurt he gets if you neglect him.’ Dickie had his free hand on his wife’s bare arm, caressing it discreetly with his thumb. ‘Besides, I’m looking forward to talking to Roberta.’

‘I don’t think Benedict likes me at all. And I certainly don’t like him.’

‘Sweetie, he’s crazy about you. Do your duty, there’s a good girl.’

As she slouched off like a rebellious teenager Dickie gazed after her, love transforming his plain features into something pleasant to see. Then he turned back to me, smiling. ‘I was watching you two. Fleur really likes you. She’s no good at hiding her feelings, you know.’

‘She’s charming,’ I said, meaning to please but meaning it, too.

Dickie lifted his upper lip and grinned like a dog. ‘Isn’t she wonderful? The first time I set eyes on her was at a garden party. Burgo was the guest of honour. It was in aid of somebody starving somewhere. It was hot and stuffy and the people were awfully stuffy too. Fleur was standing alone in the shade of a weeping willow. She took off her hat and shook out her hair. There was a band playing. One of those musicals. Te-tum, te-tum, te-tum.’ Dickie hummed something unrecognizable. ‘She started to dance, with her eyes closed, as though she was imagining herself far away. I said to myself, that’s the girl I’m going to marry.’ Dickie’s face as he told me this story had become patchy with emotion. ‘But I had to wait four years before she’d have me. She was only eighteen then and naturally she had other things on her mind besides marriage. And I was already a silly old buffer. I’m fifty this year – nearly thirty years older.’

I tried to look surprised.

‘Yes, it’s not so much May and September, more like February and November.’

I put a note of polite contradiction into my laugh.

‘Actually …’ He pulled a face. ‘I bribed her into marrying me. I said she could have Stargazer as a wedding present. A horse, you know.’ Dickie smiled, then looked solemn. ‘People might think that was an ignoble thing to do: an older man taking advantage of youth and all that; but I knew I could look after her, d’you see? Her parents were dead and she only had Burgo to take care of her. He did his best – there’s no better fellow – but he’s a busy chap. I was in the fortunate position of inheriting money. My family were in soap. “You’ll always love bath-night when you use Dreamlite,”’ he sang, revealing a glimpse of pink plastic dental plate.

I remembered the commercial, one of the first television advertisement campaigns, featuring a girl wearing a tiara, false eyelashes and a pout, sitting in a bath and patting blobs of foam on to her carefully made-up face while a footman in livery, wearing a blindfold, held her bathrobe. Dreamlite, packaged in crested glossy gold paper but extremely cheap, had convinced the nation that there was pleasure and status to be had from an affordable soap. Now I understood why the Temple was dedicated to Hygeia.

‘It was a clever piece of marketing.’

‘Wasn’t it! A simple message, easily understood. That was my father. He was a born businessman. He could have made a fortune selling dust for dining-room tables. It was the sorrow of his life that none of his children took after him. We’re all as thick as fog. Ah, there’s Mrs Harris to say that dinner’s ready.’

A middle-aged woman dressed in black, presumably his housekeeper, had opened the double doors that led into the hall and was standing to the side of them, unsmiling, her eyes fixed on nothing.

‘Come along, everyone,’ called Dickie. ‘Grub’s up.’

I was, on the whole, pleased to find that I had not been placed next to Burgo. It seemed to confirm that I had been asked only to make up the numbers. If I was at all disappointed it was because he would have been more interesting to talk to than the orthopaedic surgeon on my right, who was accustomed to cut ice in his professional life and who shamelessly monopolized every subject we discussed. But the delight of finding myself in a beautiful room filled with wonderful furniture and scented with roses and lilies more than made up for my neighbour’s shortcomings. On my left was a publisher. He dealt only with academic books so he was no use as far as Oliver was concerned. But he was intelligent and agreeable and we had fun talking to each other during our allotted courses. In fact we carried on talking to each other through the pudding and the cheese, though I was guiltily aware that the surgeon was waiting for me to turn back to him.

After that Fleur stood up and muttered something in an offhand way about coffee, which was the signal for the women to depart.

‘Come on!’ She grabbed my arm as soon as we were in the hall. ‘I’ve got something to show you.’ She led me to the kitchen quarters and opened the door of what appeared to be the boiler room. ‘Look!’ she said in a tone of deep feeling. ‘Did you ever see anything more glorious?’

A large black dog – I ought to have said bitch – lay almost hidden beneath a heap of squeaking, squirming puppies. I bent to put my hand among the wriggling bodies. The puppies nibbled my fingers with velvet mouths. I stroked their backs and tickled their fat little paws. I picked one up. ‘This is the first time I’ve held a puppy,’ I confessed, kissing its wrinkled brow.

‘You don’t mean that!’ Fleur’s eyes were full of sympathy. ‘You poor thing!’

‘My father was bitten by one as a child. He’s always hated all dogs since so we never had one.’

‘How dreadful for you! I’m not going to let Looby have another litter. It’s too difficult to find good homes.’ She gave a gasp of excitement. ‘Would you like a puppy?’

‘I’d adore it but I’m living with my parents at the moment so it’s quite impossible. But I’m flattered you think I could be trusted to look after it.’

‘I can tell that sort of thing straight away. I’m hopeless socially – well, I don’t need to tell you that. It’s only too obvious. I hate pretending I like people when I don’t. It seems to add insult to injury. To them, I mean. Often I don’t like people who are perfectly worthy and decent and all that but they make me feel uncomfortable when they pretend things.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘Oh, that they aren’t bored, that they’re enjoying themselves, that they care about things just because they’re supposed to. You know. Like this evening. All those women with fluty voices, praising each other, praising me, laughing at things that aren’t amusing, making the effort to talk. Would it be so dreadful if we sat at the table in silence and thought our own thoughts?’

‘I think it would quickly become embarrassing. And sometimes my thoughts aren’t that interesting. Often I’d rather listen to someone else’s. But I agree it can be an appalling grind if you find someone unsympathetic.’

‘You had that foul surgeon, Bernard Matthias. He calls me “young lady” and I know he disapproves of me. He thinks I’m gauche and rude and he’s quite right. Burgo says I ought to grow up and play the game. He says it’s self-indulgent to insist on being strictly truthful all the time. But when I try to put on an act, I start to feel peculiar. I can feel my face twitching and I get panicky and hot.’

‘You’re not the only one.’ I put the puppy back into the basket. Its mother began to lick it painstakingly from nose to tail, removing my scent. ‘Sometimes I can’t play the game either. At the Conservative lunch today I hated absolutely everyone in the room. Apart from your brother, of course. They seemed to me quite unreasonably pleased with themselves. But I expect I was in the mood to find fault.’

Fleur looked at me thoughtfully. Then she said, solemnly, ‘Burgo was right. He said I’d like you. I was afraid you’d be grand and smart, but you aren’t. At least, you look wonderful but you aren’t at all grande dame.’

‘Why don’t you call me Bobbie?’ I suggested. ‘Nearly everyone does.’

Fleur considered. ‘I like that. I once had a monkey called Bobbie.’

‘Shouldn’t we go back to the drawing room? Won’t the other women be expecting you to give them coffee?’

‘Mrs Harris always does that. Once I spilled it on the carpet and she had to spend ages getting it out. I think she’s hoping I’ll break my neck riding Stargazer and then she’ll be able to console Dickie. She’s crazy about him and thinks he’s utterly wasted on me. She’s quite right.’

‘I’ve never seen a man so obviously in love with his wife.’ I was being truthful. I would not have dared to equivocate with someone so passionately sincere as Fleur.

‘Oh yes, he’s in love with me but that doesn’t mean to say I’m any good for him.’ Fleur began to fiddle with the loop of a doglead that was hanging nearby. ‘Often I think if I weren’t quite, quite heartless I’d run away. After a while he’d get over it and he’d meet someone else – not Mrs Harris, she’s much too boring – who’d be able to give him what he wanted.’

‘What does he want?’

‘What do men want?’ She shrugged. ‘A wife to run their house brilliantly, dazzle their friends, be nice to their mother? Luckily Dickie’s mother died ages ago. And laugh at their jokes. I do when I remember but Dickie’s jokes aren’t very funny. Someone to be around when they’re wanted and to disappear into the kitchen when not, although Mrs Harris would be furious if I ever tried to cook anything. And children, of course. Dickie would like children more than anything. Isn’t it odd?’

‘I can think of quite a few men who like children.’

‘But they don’t yearn for them as Dickie does. He adores looking after things. Sometimes I find him in here playing with the puppies and giving Looby extra biscuits though it isn’t good for her to get fat. He goes round the estate feeding everything: birds, squirrels, foxes, badgers. It nearly kills me because I know what it means. He wants a baby to kiss and buy pretty things for and teach how to ride a bicycle and all that.’ Fleur abandoned the lead and began to nibble a fingernail, a bar of pink across her pale cheeks. ‘Poor Dickie, I suppose I’m just the meanest, most selfish person alive but’ – she grimaced and shuddered – ‘I just can’t bear the idea—’

‘I knew I’d find you here.’ Dickie stood in the doorway. ‘Come along, you bad girls. All the men are panting for the sight of the pair of you. You’ve made a hit with Matthias, Roberta. He asked me all about you.’ Dickie winked at me. ‘I thought I’d better warn you. Sound as a bell of course, no better fellow, but he does lack a sense of humour.’

‘He’s a horrible man,’ said Fleur. ‘He keeps his dogs outside in kennels all winter and he hunts.’ It was clear there was no greater crime in Fleur’s eyes.

Dickie laughed indulgently as he shepherded us back to the drawing room. ‘He thinks of foxes as vermin, darling. It doesn’t occur to him that it might be cruel. People’s attitudes are mostly formed by their upbringing, you know.’

‘Only stupid people’s,’ hissed Fleur.

As we entered the room several people turned smiling faces towards us. Fleur put her arm through mine and led me to stand with our backs to the room before a large landscape.

‘Don’t let’s talk to them a second more than we can help. They’re only being polite for Dickie’s sake.’

‘What a wonderful painting!’ I was genuinely moved. ‘It’s a Claude, isn’t it?’

‘School of,’ said a voice in my ear. It was the surgeon. ‘Claude never painted pure landscape. He always put in figures from classical mythology. When we consider the different ways Claude and Poussin use reflected light …’

Fleur gave him a look of loathing and edged away but I was trapped for a quarter of an hour while he lectured me on Roman Renaissance art.

‘Don’t you think Elsheimer an important influence …’ I attempted to turn the monologue to dialogue but the surgeon brushed aside my contribution by speaking louder and more emphatically.

I found myself swallowing yawns, my throat aching with the effort. It was now half past ten. I had spent an arduous day washing and ironing eight sheets, the same number of pillowcases and forty-two napkins. My father insisted on clean, starched napkins at breakfast, lunch and dinner. I had introduced paper ones one lunchtime during my first week at home and he had become plethoric with rage. I had persuaded Oliver to do without but, for once, my mother had sided with my father.

I turned my head discreetly as the surgeon gave me the benefit of his accumulated wisdom and stole a glance at the other guests. Burgo and I had not exchanged a word all evening. Whenever I had happened to glance in his direction he had been surrounded by women. Now he stood near the drawing-room door, holding a coffee cup, staring into its depths. A woman talked energetically to him, having seen off the competition. She was wearing an expensive-looking dress of bold magenta Fortuny-pleated silk, which looked good with her short black hair. She flashed her eyes and laughed frequently and, as far as I could tell, maintained a constant, faceaching expression of spirited gaiety. Watching her covertly over the surgeon’s shoulder I saw Burgo strike a match to light her cigarette. She tossed him a look as smouldering as her cigarette end.

‘When you take into account the importance of the inspiration of ancient Attica …’ droned the surgeon.

I must have dropped into a waking doze for the next thing I heard was Burgo’s voice.

‘Sorry to deprive you of your audience, Matthias, but I promised Dickie I’d show Roberta the Temple of Hygeia,’ said Burgo.

‘Can’t it wait, Latimer?’ The surgeon looked huffy. ‘You’re interrupting a fascinating discussion. It isn’t often I find a young lady so well informed.’

Burgo looked at me. I put as much entreaty into my eyes as good manners permitted.

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘Dickie was insistent.’

Fleur would have been disgusted, had she seen the departing smile I bestowed on Mr Matthias. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, stroking the stomach of a small grey dog, ignoring a man who was squatting in front of her, trying to engage her attention. On our way out I glanced at the woman who had been talking so animatedly to Burgo. Her face was gloomy, her gaiety extinguished. She looked up and met my eye. There was something savage about the way she flung her cigarette into the fire.