Moonshine. Victoria Clayton

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