who lives, not surprisingly, at Flaxborough Hall, which is, also not surprisingly, just outside Flaxborough, and in which ‘a proposition of some interest will be put to you’, according to the Curator of the Coppinger Collection, Peregrine Thoresby. What a feast of sarcasm about his glamorous life and his neglect of her that would inspire if he told her. And in the evening … well …!
‘Tomorrow? Nothing much. Can’t remember.’
‘Oh, come on, Gordon. You always remember. You don’t even need a diary.’
‘No, honestly, tomorrow, routine bits and bobs, that’s all. Tuesday’s never very stimulating. Oh, and I won’t be back for dinner. I have a meeting.’
‘With Mandy?’
‘Who’s the tiramisu?’
He was grateful for the interruption; he had never been so grateful to a waiter, but he didn’t show it.
‘Has it not dawned on you yet that I choose the British dishes, because I am British and proud of it, and my wife deliberately, in order to annoy me, chooses the most foreign dishes she can find on the menu?’
‘So you are the Eton Mess, sir?’
‘Oh, well deduced, Mr Einstein.’
Oh God, now those dark eyes were gleaming. In his eagerness to show the waiter how much he hated him he had revealed to Christina how deeply she had got under his skin. What a disaster, what an Eton mess.
‘You’re avoiding my question. Are you seeing the marvellous Mandy tomorrow night?’
‘I wasn’t avoiding your question. The waiter interrupted, with the genius of his ilk. I didn’t get a chance to reply.’
‘You’re avoiding it now. Are you seeing Mandy?’
‘What is this obsession with Mandy?’
‘That’s what I ask myself. Are you seeing her tomorrow night?’
Why was he so reluctant to lie? Was he losing his nerve? Did he think she would be able to tell that he was lying?
‘No, I am not seeing Mandy tomorrow night. I’m seeing two Croatian businessmen. Croatia’s an up-and-coming country. I need to get in there.’
After that, they ate their delicious desserts in silence.
Suddenly the door burst open and a woman in her early thirties, wearing a witch’s hat and a very short dress, lurched into the room, saw them, and shrieked with laughter.
‘Oops, sorry, I thought it was the Ladies,’ she said.
‘No,’ said Sir Gordon unnecessarily.
‘Oh gawd, I’m bursting,’ said the drunk young woman.
‘Too much information,’ said Sir Gordon.
‘Do you know where the Ladies is?’ the drunk young woman asked Christina.
‘I have no idea,’ said Christina frostily.
‘Blimey, you’re on your pud and you haven’t been yet. You must have a strong bladder. I’ve got a very weak bladder. I go all the time. Pee, pee, pee, that’s me.’
Oh, Christina, your face. Your fury. Your scorn. The lower orders, how common, how vulgar. Your denial of your birth, your childhood, your mum and dad, your moments of glory as Miss Lemon Drizzle. Oh, Christina.
He conveniently forgot, in his scorn of her scorn, that he also despised the lower orders. But, curiously, this evening he did not despise this intruder. Oh, silly drunk young woman in your witch’s hat, he thought, I will help you find the Ladies.
And he did. Without difficulty. With charm.
And that disturbed him. Maybe he had only done it to irritate Christina, and he often went through rituals that he despised and hid his scorn in charm, but he found that he did not despise this young woman who might have very good reasons to get drunk. He found the incident rather endearing. He thought the young woman was fun.
That was worrying.
He returned, looked at his wife’s icy face.
‘It’s odd. Today has been strangely dominated by urine. At breakfast I thought of the horror of needing to pee on the Kingston By-Pass. In the office, I imagined our receptionist’s boyfriend peeing in a sodden Sussex hedge. In the lift I realized I needed to pee and then I found myself describing young Martin Fortescue as a long streak of piss – though only to myself admittedly – and then in the afternoon I found myself in agony, while I was searching for Jack, and I did something I’ve never done, I took an enormous risk, not a paparazzo in sight, but still a risk, I peed under Blackfriars Bridge. And now this poor girl with her weak bladder, what a day.’
Of course he said none of that. The evening ended, as it had begun, in silence.
A great deal nearer than the Solway Firth
Sir Gordon felt slightly uneasy on his visit to Flaxborough Hall. This was the real deal. Rose Cottage truly was only a cottage after all.
He felt uneasy from the moment Kirkstall nosed the Rolls-Royce up the long drive towards the beautiful Jacobean frontage, through parkland laid out by Perspicacity Smith centuries ago.
There were signs, it was true, of slight but disturbing decay. Some of the bushes needed pruning. Branches that had been ripped off trees by the recent gales still lay on the ground. The mellow red-brick walls were in need of pointing. A gutter here and there hung loosely. Drainpipes were rusty.
The eighteenth Earl of Flaxborough stood at the top of the steps to welcome them, almost as if Sir Gordon and Peregrine Thoresby were royalty. Here too there were signs of slight but disturbing decay. He looked frail. He seemed to have become slightly too small for his clothes. He was beginning to droop, as if his long legs could no longer bear the weight of his even longer body. He had stretched his thin hair bravely over his scalp, to little avail.
‘I am so delighted to welcome you to Flaxborough,’ he said, in a melodious voice steeped in history.
There was a slight stiffness to his walk as he led them through the great hall into a large drawing room. The chairs in which they sat felt as if dust sheets had only just been removed from them. A chill hung over the house. Damp clung to the walls like a nervous child. It would have been tactless to look at the plaster too closely.
‘The bells aren’t working,’ said the Earl apologetically. ‘Excuse me while I round up some sherry.’
Perhaps the Earl’s stiffness was just a result of the damp, but when he had gone Peregrine commented, ‘He walks as if he has the burden of history in his bones.’ Peregrine had a great mass of curly black hair which made him look much younger than his forty-eight years. His voice was almost as posh as the Earl’s, but thinner and more strident. ‘Did you notice that little habit he has of glancing behind him? Is it fanciful to imagine that he is seeing seventeen Earls of Flaxborough marching behind him, watching what
