One Day in May

by Catherine Alliott

  I brushed my teeth thoroughly, took my make-up off, but not my mascara. Chose, not an old T-shirt, but a rather lovely white cotton nightshirt I’d bought in France. I got into bed and lay there, heart pounding. Hang on. Might just have a quick wash. Pits and parts, as Mum would say. I hopped back into bed, still a bit damp. Would he think it odd? That I’d washed? Was damp? I nipped out and dried very thoroughly.

  The minutes passed. Ticked on. Don’t be silly, Hattie, he’s not that sort of man. He’s mature, sensible. He’s everything your life lacks, everything it should have: everything you need. I gave a great sigh of relief in the dark. After all those years of being Out There. Come in, Hattie Carrington, your time is up. I felt so warm, so cosseted, it wouldn’t surprise me if I finally fell asleep with a beatific smile on my face, like a lost soul who’s been anointed. Either that or the cat who’s got the cream.

  I was woken, an hour or so later, by a certain amount of giggling and whispering outside. Was it him? Instantly awake, I slipped in one fluid movement to the door: opened it in time to see the shadowy figure of an indeterminate male disappear around the gallery, and then Maggie’s door shut softly. Right. Corridor creeping wasn’t off her agenda then. I fell back into bed and, instantly, into a deep sleep.

  The following morning dawned bright and chilly. A faint mist was already lifting from the hills, the sun breaking through and peeping in at the windows. It was Saturday, the day of the shoot. Breakfast was laid in the dining room – the kitchen deemed too small when a house party gathered – and as I came downstairs and went into the great panelled room, Hal was striding around in Mr Darcy breeches. I nearly fainted with excitement. Biba and Daisy were serving breakfast to a clutch of quiet, hung-over guests at the table, faces hidden behind their newspapers, whilst Hal helped himself to bacon from the sideboard, closing a silver domed lid.

  ‘Morning.’ The smile he gave me as he returned to the table with his kidneys flipped my heart right over.

  ‘Morning,’ I breathed.

  What, all for me? my brain said. I took in his height and stature as he sat down. This handsome, well-put-together man, clad in expensive Harris tweed and moleskin; Church’s brogues. But I wouldn’t rush. Wouldn’t hasten to bag a place beside him at the breakfast table, like something out of the lower fourth. Would linger to chat to the old codger who’d approached the sideboard with me, who was making noises about the fine weather as I collected my scrambled egg. Let Maggie, who burst in now and bustled to my side dressed in a Londoner’s idea of country clothes – tight black cashmere jumper and skin-tight jeans tucked into Russell and Bromley riding boots – be the over-excited one.

  ‘Isn’t this killing?’ she breathed. ‘I keep thinking I’m in Gosford Park!’

  ‘Was there much sex in that ?’ I enquired mildly.

  ‘What?’ She frowned, confused. ‘No, I don’t think so. Or if there was it was all hushed up and repressed – why?’

  ‘Just wondered.’

  ‘I meant the tweed knickerbockers and the kidneys for breakfast bit.’

  ‘Ah.’ I nodded as if the dawn had come up. ‘That bit.’

  ‘Look at your brother!’ She hissed, clutching my arm. ‘Doesn’t he look divine?’

  Kit had materialized, clearly straight from the shower, looking a bit damp round the edges. He tucked his checked shirt in and yawned.

  ‘Divine.’ I agreed. ‘What time did you go to bed, Maggie?’

  She was still drooling and I saw Kit flash her a grin back.

  ‘Hm? Oh,’ she coloured as she came back to me, ‘not long after you went up, I expect. Although I did sit and chew the fat for a bit.’

  ‘Oh? Who with?’

  ‘You know, those die-hard friends of theirs. The Harrisons, a few bankers. Some barrister chappie.’

  ‘Kit?’

  ‘Um, yes, he was there.’

  ‘Right.’

  Why was I cross? Why? He wasn’t off limits, was he? And wouldn’t we, as a family, all very much like him to be on limits? And Maggie was my best friend.

  ‘Morning, darlings. I say, isn’t it a perfect day? And what a feast!’ My mother, resplendent in a lovat-green deerstalker and a matching, swirling cape swept through the double doors making quite an entrance, as my mother can. Even heads buried deep in Telegraphs glanced up.

  ‘Hi, Mum, you look lovely.’ I kissed her and she gave us a twirl. ‘Thank you, my love, and so do you. And Maggie – look at you! Dressed to kill?’ She popped an imaginary gun.

  ‘Hope so,’ grinned Maggie, giving her a hug. I’d forgotten she was firm friends with my mother now.

  ‘Anyone I know?’ Mum breathed in her ear.

  ‘Er, well. A bit.’ Maggie had the grace to blush.

  ‘Ooh, how thrilling! Well, I won’t pry, but I’m delighted for you. You show that dreadful Hugo chappie what he’s missing.’

  ‘Henry,’ corrected Maggie, but I noticed her face didn’t tauten at his name: no look of pain haunted her eyes.

  Dad approached, in tweeds, which surprised me.

  ‘I thought your shooting days were over?’ I said as he kissed me. ‘Thought you saw it as more of a spectator sport these days?’

  My father, who’d shot a lot in his youth, and was indeed a very good shot, had quietly hung up his gun a few years back. He’d been invited to a very smart shoot in Norfolk, which he’d later described as mass slaughter, not unlike the Somme. The sky had been black with birds, he’d said, in fact you couldn’t see the sky: and it was big, in Norfolk. Hundreds were killed, and then buried in pits. Hugh didn’t run anything like that sort of shoot: the numbers here were low, the birds generally high, so sporting, and it was the day out that mattered. The walking in the great outdoors, lunch with friends, the conviviality, not who’d shot what and how many. And everything was either eaten – most people went home with a couple of brace – or given to the local butcher to sell. But Dad had lost the stomach for it, none the less.

  ‘I’m going to stand with Seffy,’ he said, nodding at my son across the table, already devouring a pagoda of bacon, eggs, beans and sausage, beside Luca, doing the same.

  ‘Oh, Dad, how kind. I hadn’t thought…’

  Hadn’t given a thought to the safety of my son. Seffy usually shot under Hugh’s auspices, but of course Hugh would be busy. My father, naturally, had been alive to this.

  ‘Well, in point of fact he doesn’t need anyone – he’s perfectly capable on his own – but it makes me feel better.’

  ‘Me too,’ I said with feeling. I wasn’t wild about fifteen-year-olds with guns. ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  My parents moved away to greet their granddaughters. Daisy was bustling around clearing plates, and Mum was exclaiming at Biba, who was still running in with trays of bacon.

  ‘But, darling, Mummy tells me you were on duty last night till two. You are marvellous.’

  ‘I think you’ll find Biba’s got it all worked out,’ observed Dad, giving his granddaughter a huge wink. ‘No flies on her.’

  ‘Six pounds an hour, Grandpa,’ she grinned. ‘And double money after midnight. And let me tell you, I notched up a few of those last night. I was still running around at three a.m., and being backstairs girl gives you a totally different perspective!’ She rolled her eyes at Maggie, who looked flustered.

  As Biba hurried on, Dad raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Whatever did she mean by that, d’you suppose?’

  ‘Nothing for you to bother about,’ soothed Mum, leading him off to meet and greet. ‘Oh, look, there’s Luca.’

  She skirted the table to bestow a ravishing smile. Luca got awkwardly to his feet, his sallow, sulky face flushing slightly as Mum engaged him in animated conversation, as she did so well, I realized. Dad approached too, to shake hands heartily. They were so good at this, I thought, watching. At making him feel welcome, included. Drawing him out. It occurred to me that if I could turn out just a fraction like my parents, if I could put half the effort and kindness into life that they did,
I couldn’t go far wrong. So accepting. So much grace. Turn out? If I was a blancmange I’d have been on the plate long ago.

  ‘A terribly attractive man has just asked me if I want to beat,’ Maggie breathed tremulously in my ear. ‘I might have to go and lie down. What does he mean exactly? And where does this flagellation take place? Are we completely naked? Will there be an audience? So many questions. He has got the most heavenly regional accent, though. Shall I say yes?’

  ‘Do, but I hope you’re not disappointed. You’ll be fully clothed and it takes place in dense, prickly undergrowth as you flush the pheasants out with a stick. It’s exhausting. I’d go with the guns, if I were you.’

  ‘Go… with the guns.’ She savoured this, rolling it around in her mouth. ‘Another very sexy option. Is that go, as in All The Way?’

  ‘No, it’s go as in perch behind on a shooting stick, freezing your butt off’, remarked Dad, overhearing. ‘Oh, and murmuring admiringly when he hits something. Try to keep quiet when he misses everything – whatever you say will be wrong – and on no account wrestle the gun from his hands and offer to have a go yourself. I’d ignore my daughter and beat. It’s much warmer, more exhilarating, and the company is often a deal more entertaining.’

  ‘Right,’ she agreed uncertainly. I could tell she rather fancied herself on a shooting stick behind a man with a gun, but out of politeness to Dad she turned to the tall, ruddy-faced chap standing with his group of beaters drinking coffee behind her. I recognized him as Hugh’s gamekeeper. Maggie laid a jewelled hand on his arm.

  ‘I’ll beat,’ she purred, fluttering wanton lashes.

  Oh Lord. I’d have to take her home soon.

  ‘I think,’ she dithered, vacillating. ‘Hang on.’ She’d spotted Biba across the room: hastened away to canvass her opinion.

  Meanwhile Ralph de Granville was making a late entrance, looking dashing and debonair in a subtle Harris tweed flecked with pink, which surprised me. Not the pink – I just wouldn’t have had him down as a sportsman. Yet here he was, picking his bit of card from Hugh, which told him which peg he was on, and downing a quick cup of coffee. Hugh lightly clapped his hands and cleared his throat, mildly pointing out, whilst glancing at his watch, that if we were to start at ten, which was kind of the plan, we needed to shake leg, a bit. If no one minded. The rest of the men duly collected their bits of card, and then Hal, Seffy, Luca, the Harrisons, the Rankins, Hobson-Burnetts, Tapners, my parents et al., plus the seven or eight beaters, all drained coffee cups and filed out across the hall and down the back corridor.

  The wives, I noticed, looked glamorous in clever feminine variations of tweed or anything else sludge green or brown: moleskin trousers, skirts, leather boots. It was jeans and Barbours for the teenagers, but with a twist: a beaded scarf, perhaps, over an old jumper. Before I joined everyone in the yard where I knew they’d gather for a few last-minute in structions, I peeled off to the loo. I gazed at my reflection in the mirror. Smiled. It occurred to me that for once in my life, I was in the right place at the right time. Here I was at a country house party, with a handsome, charming, successful, single man, who adored me. Even as I’d sipped my coffee back there in the dining room, even as I’d talked to my parents, I’d felt his eyes on me; devouring me. Savouring me, even, as he ostensibly mantalked to Mr Harrison, discussing drives, the merits of a twelve bore or a twenty: even then I’d known where his mind really was.

  The loo door handle rattled behind me. I exited, and I cannoned straight into Maggie, who was furtively plastering on her Pearl & Shine in the unsatisfactory reflection of a hunting print in the gloomy corridor.

  ‘Oh, it was you in there. I might have known. You could have let me in.’

  ‘Too late – they’re off. Come on.’

  I took her arm and steered her out. Through the back door we saw Hugh, helping people into the back of open Land Rovers, lorries. Some were setting off on foot, some on quad bikes, but there was a general revving up for imminent exodus.

  ‘Ooh, what fun, which one?’ Maggie’s eyes shone as she took in the various modes of transport.

  ‘Whichever you like.’

  She dithered.

  ‘Come with us, luv.’ From the back of a truck, a huge, burly man extended an enormous outstretched hand. Maggie took it eagerly, clambering aboard to settle amongst an earthy assortment of red-cheeked farm workers, their sons, and other locals who’d fancied a day out. Most were in tatty jeans and wellies, some with over-excited terriers on bits of string.

  As they made a space for her to sit down, she turned. ‘Come on, Hattie!’

  ‘Um, actually,’ I shored up a ravishing smile for Hal as he leaned down from the back of an open-ended shooting brake to offer me his hand, ‘I’m going with the guns.’

  I flashed her a grin. Couldn’t resist a giggle, even as I caught her astonished face. As she bounced off down a track, looking outraged, holding on tight with her new friends the beaters, I settled myself down amongst the men of my choice. The ones in the Savile Row suits.

  25

  Two benches facing each other ran either side of the shooting brake, with six or seven guns and wives squeezed on apiece: like a tube train, I thought as we rumbled along. There the similarity ended, though. We were much closer, elbows and knees touching, and I doubt these people troubled public transport much. It was all very jolly and convivial, and on the floor between us, four or five black Labradors trembled and steamed with excitement. One rested its huge head on my knee. On we rattled, chatting companionably, this truck full of canine and human lasagne, down a bumpy track to the first drive, the one over the hill in the bottom meadow. As we bumped along, I realized it wasn’t just knees, but bottoms and thighs which, by necessity, had to touch. Press, even. I tried not to think about my left buttock against Hal’s. Panting with excitement – the dogs, not me – the Labradors were soothed by the jewelled hands of the wives, who were all terribly good-looking; friendly and inclusive too.

  Imogen Harrison opposite, with honey-coloured hair, a wide smile and a hundred-acre voice, was telling me of a shoot she’d been to years ago, where Lester Piggott had been a guest, new to the game. As he aimed his shotgun at a pheasant running along the ground, his host had enquired mildly, ‘You’ll wait till it takes off, won’t you, Lester?’ to which the jockey had replied, ‘No, I’m waiting for it to stop.’ How everyone roared in our rickety-rackety lorry and ‘haw haw haw!’ how I roared along with them. Yes, terribly funny.

  ‘Was that the Witherston-Parkers’ shoot?’ asked a distinguished, silver-haired man beside her.

  ‘Yes, Piggy and Fluff. And of course Piggy didn’t bat an eyelid!’

  We all roared again, and this time I was right on cue, didn’t miss a beat.

  That’ll be me soon, I thought, eyeing Imogen avidly: pearls in my ears, cashmere round my neck, beautifully coiffed hair under a charming tweed hat with velvet rim, and those smart leather welly boots with ties round the top. I must ask Laura where to get them. Although Laura tended to wear jeans and some hastily borrowed garish plastic boots of her daughter’s. Yes, me and Hal: laughing with our friends as we weekended up in Scotland, fishing perhaps, or deerstalking. Bambi’s mother sprang to mind. No, just fishing. And maybe even with Imogen and her husband? She looked nice, I thought. She smiled as my eyes devoured her.

  ‘You’re Laura’s sister, aren’t you? We didn’t meet properly last night.’

  ‘Yes, Hattie.’

  ‘Well, if you’re staying, do come to supper tomorrow night. We’re having a few people over. Hal’s coming, aren’t you, Hal?’

  But Hal was engrossed with the chap beside him, laughing heartily at another shooting anecdote.

  ‘I’d love to,’ I smiled back, happily. Had she already clocked us as a couple? How thrilling. ‘Are you local, then?’

  ‘Yes, only a mile or so that way.’ She pointed.

  ‘Oh right. In the village?’

  ‘Well, the castle.’

  ‘Ah, yes,
of course.’

  Fuck me. I knew Laura and Hugh’s friends lived in stonking great piles, but I hadn’t really paid much attention. I would now, though. I’d be mugging up on all the grand estates. I should clearly know who lived in which. Could I Google them? I wondered. Or was there a book I could buy? Yes, of course, there was Debrett’s. Golly. Never thought I’d be popping that in my Amazon basket. Needs must, though, and I was pretty sure I’d have this aristocracy lark under my belt in no time. Just so long as the accent didn’t get on my wick, I thought nervously as a thoroughly inbred woman on my left whinnied spectacularly in my ear.

  Imogen was stroking a Labrador’s head as she chatted away to me, sweetly actually, asking about London, what I did, genuinely interested, and as I chatted back, I chummily stroked the head of the Lab beside me. But when it moved, I realized I’d been stroking Hal’s knee, clad in soft moleskin. He crossed his leg away and I burned with shame. Should have made a joke of it there and then. Imogen would: ‘Thought you were the bleedin’ dorg!’ but Hal was still engrossed with his neighbour and the moment had passed.

  We rumbled down a snaking track into the valley bottom and shuddered to a halt. Someone came running round to let us out and as I jumped down into the crisp, frosty grass, I cast Hal a glance. He grinned back, eyes shining. Well, of course they were shining: I’d fondled him in public, already. And I was going to be so restrained, so poised. Exercise some caution, for a change. I sighed. Oh, well.

  Maggie came marching up.

  ‘Cow,’ she hissed in my ear. ‘What’s that?’ She jerked her head at my shooting stick. ‘A seat.’ I opened it. ‘You perch your backside on it as you drool behind your man at his peg.’

  ‘Right, I’ll have that,’ she grabbed it. ‘If I’m going to be forced into the role of subservient peg totty I’ll bloody well do it in comfort.’ I grabbed it back and we giggled as an unseemly tussle ensued.

  ‘Maggie, behave.’

  ‘Don’t you tell me to behave. You’re the one fluttering your eyelids at that sexy Hal Forbes. Why he hasn’t been snapped up yet I simply can’t imagine.’