Moonshine. Victoria Clayton

‘A national concept of beauty depends on a conformity of ideas. I believe you can indoctrinate any race to do brutal things by convincing it that they’re not outlandish practices but the norm.’

      ‘I really don’t think I could be persuaded to push bamboo shoots up anyone’s fingernails,’ Dickie protested. ‘And I’m positive our dear Bobbie’ – he patted me on the arm – ‘is incapable of behaving barbarously.’

      ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It would depend on what the pressures were. Supposing the only way you could save your own family from torture was to torture someone else’s? Where would one’s principles be then? It’s easy to lose sight of the unreasonableness of demands when there isn’t any reasonable behaviour to show them up.’

      ‘Where would politicians be if people were able to resist psychological manipulation?’ said Burgo.

      ‘Now, you don’t mean that, Burgo,’ said Dickie. ‘You’ll give Bobbie the wrong impression altogether. She’ll think you’re not to be trusted.’

      ‘She thinks that already.’ He sent me a sideways glance and again I felt an electrifying sense of danger.

      ‘Nonsense!’ said Dickie.

      We had reached the China House so I was saved the necessity of replying. We pushed through the narrow gap in the hedge that led into the little garden. Mrs Harris was laying the table that had been set up on the grass in front of it. The pool contained an inch of water which had captured the hue of a robin’s egg from the sky. Limestone boulders had replaced the rose-beds and already there were fronds of young ferns in the crevices.

      ‘I wish Bobbie would come and live here with us,’ said Fleur to Burgo as we ate lovage soufflé followed by turbot, then camembert and figs. ‘We adore having her but she insists on going home, even though her parents are monsters of stinginess and selfishness.’

      ‘Fleur!’ protested Dickie. ‘It’s extremely rude to criticize Bobbie’s parents.’

      ‘I don’t think they’re as bad as that,’ I said. ‘If that’s the impression I’ve given I was probably exaggerating in a bid for sympathy. The truth is, they should never have married. They’re quite unsuited.’

      ‘I can’t think of many marriages that make the people in them feel better rather than worse,’ said Fleur.

      ‘Mine makes me feel heaps better,’ Dickie said at once. ‘It’s the very best thing in my life.’

      Fleur’s cheeks took on a bright colour. Her eyes grew soft. ‘That’s kinder than I deserve.’

      I was pleased by this evidence of Fleur’s fondness for Dickie. Though I loved being with them I was often wounded on his behalf by Fleur’s careless attitude. Particularly when I saw her with Billy.

      ‘Marriage is a means to an end. One marries to have children, to secure property, continue a line, to simplify taxation,’ said Burgo. ‘Why people should yoke themselves together fiscally and expect to relish each other’s maddening inconsistencies is more than I can understand.’

      ‘There you go again, pretending to be cynical,’ protested Dickie. ‘It’s learning to like people’s maddening little ways because they’re part of them that makes for love. The rest, fancying the cut of their jib, wanting to kiss them, is all very enjoyable but nothing to do with real love.’

      Fleur dropped her head back and crammed a fig whole into her mouth. A trickle of juice ran down her chin. With her dark curling hair and slanting eyes she looked like a bacchante.

      Poor Dickie. I had several times been up to Fleur’s bedroom. It contained a double bed but the single pillow and the solitary bedside lamp beside a large photograph of Burgo confirmed the fact that Fleur slept alone. Bowls of water and biscuits and baskets took up much of the floor space. The counterpane was marked by fur-lined depressions, the furniture was scored with claw-marks and there was a distinct smell of tom-cat. It was hardly surprising that Dickie was keen to play down the importance of the physical side of marriage.

      ‘I disagree.’ Burgo spoke rapidly and waved a hand for emphasis, an elegant hand with long fingers like Fleur’s, though cleaner and without bitten nails. ‘It isn’t cynical at all. I don’t say there’s no such thing as love. Of course there is, and it includes finding other people’s idiosyncrasies enthralling, besides desiring them physically. It may even co-exist with marriage. But marriage is for other purposes and you shouldn’t ask too much of it. It’s like being disappointed that an aeroplane isn’t a time machine. A plane is a superbly efficient method of getting about the globe fast. But to expect it to take you to the fourteenth century is unreasonable.’

      ‘I don’t see how you can separate things into different compartments like that,’ Dickie objected. ‘Marriage, if you spend any time together, can’t be just a contract to give the income-tax man one in the eye. You’d be bound to have some pretty strong feelings about your spouse – though not necessarily all affirmative, I grant. Eskimos, Maoris, Choctaws; they all have ceremonies of some kind. It’s human nature for men and women to want to get together beside their very own cooking-pot in some sort of exclusive arrangement to keep the world at bay. And it’s just what the doctor ordered when you’re past your first youth: swapping the hurly-burly of the what’s-it for the deep peace of the double bed and all that. Darby and Joan, Jack Sprat and his wife.’ He stared up at the deepening sky seeking further illustration. ‘Adam and Eve, you know.’

      ‘They didn’t have much choice.’ Burgo smiled. ‘As far as I remember they were the only two people there.’

      Dickie laughed good-naturedly. ‘You know what I mean. I’m no good at arguing. What do you think, Bobbie?’

      ‘As the only unmarried person present obviously I can’t speak from experience. I think probably my own idea of marriage is much more exacting than wanting to be taken to the fourteenth century. But if those hopes weren’t fulfilled I suppose I’d try to persuade myself that a good marriage was whatever I had.’

      ‘You’d risk settling for something thoroughly inferior by doing that,’ said Burgo. ‘But you might be right. Perhaps self-delusion is necessary for happiness.’

      ‘Strike me purple and knock me down with an express train,’ said Fleur. (This was one of Billy’s favourite expressions.) ‘I don’t ever remember you agreeing with anyone before. You always say that unanimity makes for dull conversation.’

      ‘On this occasion I reserve the right to contradict myself. Must you do that?’

      Fleur was tossing scraps from our plates to Lancelot, her red setter, who was leaping to catch them, knocking against the table and making the knifes and forks rattle. She stopped at once.

      ‘I like agreement,’ said Dickie. ‘It’s pleasant and restful. I hate quarrelling.’

      ‘Not agreeing with someone isn’t the same as quarrelling.’ Burgo leaned across the table to pour me a glass of red wine to accompany the camembert. ‘Discussion – or argument if you like – is the proper way to get to the truth.’

      ‘I don’t know that I care about truth as much as all that.’ Dickie cut himself a piece of camembert. ‘I’d rather be comfortable and jolly any day. What do you say, Bobbie?’

      I had the sensation – probably due to the heat and the wine and the pleasure of being in the garden – of having reached some plateau of happiness and the idea that if I remained exactly as I was and made no conscious mental effort in any direction I should be able to retain this for a while longer.

      ‘I want … I want everything. Truth, beauty, comfort, jollity – I don’t want to have to choose between things.’

      ‘I agree.’ Burgo took a fig and quartered it, exposing crimson flesh, crammed with pips. ‘It’s too perfect an evening to be serious about anything.’

      Fleur began to laugh, though at what she would not say.