do stay,’ said the Duchess, taking the tweed trousers from Ian. ‘Lovely to have some fresh blood,’ she added. It sounded like a threat.
‘Are you walking out with us today?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I replied, confused. ‘What does… um, what does that mean?’
‘What?’
‘What you just said. Walking out?’
‘Oh,’ she said, surprised. Then, quite slowly, as if she was talking to a small child, ‘As in, are you coming shooting with us?’
‘With a gun?’
She smiled at me. ‘Darling, no, we wouldn’t give you a gun. You don’t look like a trained killer. Walking out means coming along and watching. Jolly cold, frightfully boring. But you can stand with Jasper.’
I was relieved. ‘Oh, right. Then yes, I think so. If that’s all right.’
‘Have you got any clothes?’ she asked, standing up to put her own trousers on. One leg in, then the other. She maintained eye contact with me throughout. It was like some kind of weird, reverse striptease.
‘Uhhh, yes. In here.’ I jiggled my overnight bag.
‘Good, well, we’re already all terribly late. Ian, has someone made a room up?’
‘Yes, madam.’
‘Marvellous, in that case can you show Holly to her room and she can quickly get changed. I can’t tell you the row there’ll be if we’re not at the stables in the next ten minutes. And take her to Jasper’s room afterwards, will you?’ She stalked out, in the direction of the boot room.
‘It’s Polly, actually,’ I said to Ian, apologetically.
‘Welcome, madam,’ he replied, holding a giant hand out for my bag.
I followed Ian as he walked slowly out of the kitchen and back into the corridor, past more dead Montgomerys, up a twisting staircase, along another corridor, down some carpeted stairs and then he turned and opened a door.
‘Here you are, you’re in Nanny’s old room. There’s a bathroom just through there. I’ll give you a few moments to change and then take you to Lord Jasper.’
‘Great, thanks. Yes please.’
I stepped into the room as Ian closed the door behind me. It looked like it hadn’t been redecorated for fifty years. Flowery wallpaper, a yellowing carpet and a pink quilt on a narrow single bed. I pressed my hand on the mattress and winced as a spring pinged underneath it. There was a stuffed ferret with horrid little pink eyes on the mantelpiece. My phone buzzed from inside the bag. It was Lala.
You there? Keep me posted. Xxx
I chucked the phone down on the quilt. Later was fine, I needed to put on my tweed. A few moments later, I looked like a Victorian lady explorer off to discover the dusty crevices of the empire. Was I supposed to look like this? I fished my lip-gloss out of my bag and added some for effect, then glanced in the mirror again. If Joe could see me, he would die of a heart attack from laughing.
There was a discreet knock at the door and a gentle cough outside.
‘Sorry, sorry, just coming.’ I threw the lip-gloss on the bed and opened the door.
‘Magnificent,’ said Ian. ‘Follow me.’
Sedate apparently being Ian’s preferred pace, I followed him back up the carpeted stairs and along the corridor.
‘Lord Jasper,’ said Ian, stopping outside a closed door from behind which I could hear Van Morrison playing. ‘I’ve got the journalist from London here.’
Van Morrison stopped. ‘Oh, Jesus,’ came a groan.
‘She’s not called Jesus, sir. She’s called Polly,’ said Ian.
‘Good one,’ said Jasper, throwing opening the door and smiling at me. ‘Polly, hello, any friend of Lala’s is a friend of mine.’
He was handsome, I had to admit it. And taller than I expected, with blue eyes and dirty blond hair that he swept to the side with one hand. He was also wearing an absurd pair of tweed knickerbockers which gathered just beneath his knees, but his shirt was loose and unbuttoned. He, too, was barefoot. Was nobody in this family able to dress themselves properly?
Jasper held out his hand. ‘How do you do?’
But I didn’t have a second to answer how I was doing, because he immediately turned to Ian.
‘Now, Ian, my good man, I can’t seem to find a single pair of shooting socks. I mean, I don’t know what you do with them. Do you eat them? I buy a million pairs every year and then the shooting season rolls around again and they’ve all gone. It’s the bloody end, I tell you.’
‘I’ll have a look in your father’s room, sir.’ Ian turned and glided silently back along the passage.
‘Right, well, Polly, I’m so sorry. It’s a madhouse here, as you’ve probably already gathered. Did you meet my parents?’
‘Yes, your father was outside with his dog, and your mother was in the kitchen, looking for her trousers.’
‘And here I am, looking for my socks. What a shambles we all are.’ He pushed his hair to the side again. ‘You look superb anyway. Have you been out shooting before?’
I looked down at my tweed self-consciously. ‘Oh, thanks. And no, I haven’t.’
Jasper started doing up his shirt. ‘Well, give me two seconds and, socks permitting, we can be on our way. How are you with dogs by the way?’
‘With them?’
‘Do you mind them? Do you like them?’
‘Oh, no… I mean, yes. I love them. I’ve grown up with them. My mother has a small terrier called Bertie.’
‘How sweet. Mine is an abominably badly behaved Labrador called Bovril. Do you mind being in charge of him today while I shoot? I’ll tell you where to stand and all that.’
‘Sure. No problem. What about the interview though?’
‘What interview?’
‘Well, I need to sit down with you at some point and chat about, you know, the pictures in the paper and…’ I trail off, nervously.
‘Oh, don’t worry about that, we’ll have acres of time tonight over dinner. Now, let’s go and find these socks.’
An hour later, I was standing behind Jasper in a field on the side of a steep hill, holding on to Bovril’s lead with one hand, and my hat with the other. There were five other men spread out along the field, each holding a gun, each with a woman standing dutifully behind them, also holding some colour of Labrador on a lead. The wind was blowing odd noises towards
