'What difference can you make?' said Fiona. 'Brahms can't be forced to go on. If he's determined to stop working for us, there's not much anyone in the Department can do about it.'
'No?' I said. 'Well, you might be surprised.'
She looked at me. 'But Brahms Four is old. He must be due for retirement.'
'Dicky was making veiled threats.'
'Bluff.'
'Probably bluff,' I agreed. 'Just Dicky's way of saying that if I stand back and let anyone else go, they might get too rough. But you can't be sure with Dicky. Especially when his seniority is on the line.'
'You mustn't go, darling.'
'My being there is probably going to make no difference at all.'
'Well then…'
'But if someone else goes – some kid from the Berlin office – and something bad happens. How will I ever be sure that I couldn't have made it come out okay?'
'Even so, Bernard, I still don't want you to go.'
'We'll see,' I said.
'You owe Brahms Four nothing,' she said.
'I owe him,' I said. 'I know that, and so does he. That's why he'll trust me in a way he'll trust no one else. He knows I owe him.'
'It must be twenty years,' she said, as if promises, like mortgages, became less burdensome with tune.
'What's it matter how long ago it was?'
'And what about what you owe me? And what you owe Billy and Sally?'
'Don't get angry, sweetheart,' I said. 'It's hard enough already. You think I want to go over there and play Boy Scout again?'
'I don't know,' she said. She was angry, and when we got on the motorway she put her foot down so that the needles went right round the dials. We were at Uncle Silas's farm well before he'd even opened the champagne for pre-lunch drinks.
Whitelands was a 6oo-acre farm in the Cotswolds – the great limestone plateau that divides the Thames Valley from the River Severn – and the farmhouse of ancient honey-coloured local stone with mullioned windows and lopsided doorway would have looked too perfect, like the set for a Hollywood film, except that summer had not yet come and the sky was grey, the lawn brown, and the rosebushes trimmed back and bloomless.
There were other cars parked carelessly alongside the huge stone barn, a horse tethered to the gate, and fresh clots of mud on the metal grating of the porch. The old oak door was unlocked, and Fiona pushed her way into the hall in that proprietorial way that was permitted to members of the family. There were coats hanging on the wall and more draped over the settee.
'Dicky and Daphne Cruyer,' said Fiona, recognizing a mink coat.
'And Bret Rensselaer,' I said, touching a sleeve of soft camel hair. 'Is it going to be all people from the office?'
Fiona shrugged and turned so that I could help her take off her coat. There were voices and decorous laughter from the back of the house. 'Not all from the office,' she said. The Range Rover out front belongs to that retired general who lives in the village. His wife has the riding school – remember? You hated her.'
'I wonder if the Cruyers are staying,' I said.
'Not if their coats are in the hall,' said Fiona.
'You should have been a detective,' I said. She grimaced at me. It wasn't the sort of remark that Fiona regarded as a compliment.
This region of England has the prettiest villages and most beautiful countryside in the world, and yet there is something about such contrived perfection that I find disquieting. For the cramped labourer's cottages are occupied by stockbrokers and building speculators, and ye host in ye olde village pub turns out to be an airline pilot between trips. The real villagers live near the main road in ugly brick terraced houses, their front gardens full of broken motorcars.
'If you go down to the river, remember the bank is slippery with mud. And for goodness* sake wipe your shoes carefully before you come in for lunch.' The children responded with whoops of joy. 'I wish we had somewhere like this to go at weekends,' Fiona said to me.
'We do have somewhere like this,' I said. 'We have this. Your Uncle Silas has said come as often as you like.'
'It's not the same,' she said.
'You're damn right it's not,' I said. 'If this was our place, you'd not be going down the hall for a glass of champagne before lunch. You'd be hurrying along to the kitchen to scrape the vegetables in cold water.'
'Fiona, my darling! And Bernard!' Silas Gaunt came from the kitchen. 'I thought I recognized the children I just spotted climbing through the shrubbery.'
'I'm sorry,' said Fiona, but Silas laughed and slapped me on the back.
'We'll be eating very soon but there's just time to gulp a glass of something. I think you know everyone. Some neighbours dropped in, but I haven't been able to get them to stay for lunch.'
Silas Gaunt was a huge man, tall, with a big belly. He'd always been fat, but since his wife died he'd grown fatter in the way that only rich old self-indulgent men grow fat. He cared nothing about his waistline or that his shirts were so tight the buttons were under constant strain, or about the heavy jowls that made him look like a worried bloodhound. His head was almost bald and his forehead overhung his eyes in a way that set his features into a constant frown, which was only dispelled by his loud laughs for which he threw his head back and opened his mouth at the ceiling. Uncle Silas presided over his luncheon party like a squire with his farm workers, but he gave no offence, because it was so obviously a joke, just as his posture as a farmer was a joke, despite all the discarded rubber boots in the hall, and the weather-beaten hay rake disposed on the back lawn like some priceless piece of modern sculpture.
'They all come to see me,' he said as he poured Chateau Pétrus '64 for his guests. 'Sometimes they want me to recall some bloody fool thing the Department decided back in the sixties, or they want me to use my influence with someone upstairs, or they want me to sell some ghastly little Victorian commode they've inherited.' Silas looked round the table to be sure everyone present remembered that he had a partnership in a Bond Street antique shop. The taciturn American, Bret Rensselaer, was squeezing the arm of the busty blonde he'd brought with him. 'But I see them all – believe me I never get lonely.' I felt sorry for old Silas; it was the sort of thing that only very lonely people claimed.
Mrs Porter, his cook-housekeeper, came through the door from the kitchen bearing a roast sirloin. 'Good. I like beef,' said my small son Billy.
Mrs Porter smiled in appreciation. She was an elderly woman who had learned the value of a servant who heard nothing, saw nothing, and said very little. 'I've no time for stews and pies and all those mixtures,' explained Uncle Silas as he opened a second bottle of lemonade for the children. 'I like to see a slice of real meat on my plate. I hate all those sauces and purées. The French can keep their cuisine.' He poured a little lemonade for my son, and waited while Billy noted its colour and bouquet, took a sip, and nodded approval just as Silas had instructed him to do.
Mrs Porter arranged the meat platter in front of Silas and placed the carving knife and fork to hand before going to get the vegetables. Dicky Cruyer dabbed wine from his lips with a napkin. The host's words seemed to be aimed at him. 'I can't stand by and let you defame la cuisine française in such a cavalier fashion, Silas.' Dicky smiled. 'I'd get myself blackballed by Paul Bocuse.'
Silas served Billy with a huge portion of rare roast beef and went on carving. 'Start eating!' Silas commanded. Dicky's wife, Daphne, passed the plates. She worked in advertising and liked to dress in grandma clothes, complete with black velvet choker, cameo brooch and small metal-rim eyeglasses. She insisted on a very small portion of beef.
Dicky saw my son spill gravy down his shirt and smiled at me pityingly. The Cruyer boys were at boarding school; their parents only saw them at vacation time. It's the only way to stay sane, Dicky had explained to me more than once.
Silas carved into the meat with skilful concentration. There were ooos! and ahhs! from the guests. Dicky Cruyer said it was a 'sumptuous repast' and addressed Silas as 'mine host'. Fiona gave me a blank stare as a warning against provoking Dicky into more such comments.