One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [132]
‘Cassie. Cassie Forbes.’
She looked across at her name. Smiled shyly at me.
‘Cassie.’ I executed a tight smile. ‘I thought you couldn’t get out this weekend.’ It sounded awful. Accusing. I felt Seffy’s eyes on me.
‘Oh, well, sometimes we’re allowed out for the day if we’re not in a team, and I wasn’t so…’ She trailed off, a bit pink.
I rallied. ‘Oh – well, how lovely! Yes, how nice that you could join us. Is Mummy here?’
Mummy. So cheesy-sounding, in my effort to be chummy. And no, of course she wasn’t, she was sleeping off the mother of all hangovers, as I well knew. So Cassie blushed some more.
‘Um, no. She’s – a bit busy today.’
Seffy’s eyes were cold now, at what he perceived to be my cruelty to his friend. Friend, or girlfriend, I wondered, heart thumping.
‘Are you going to watch me, Hattie?’ called Biba, looking gorgeous in jeans and an old hacking jacket rolled up to the elbows. ‘Daddy’s let me loose with the twenty-bore.’
‘Under my strict supervision,’ warned Hugh, hustling her away. ‘Come on then, Biba, find your place and stop posing.’
People drifted away down the wide, sunlit valley to take up positions facing the sloping beech woods. My new friend Imogen materialized beside me.
‘Shall we stand with Hal? He’s an awfully good shot.’
She had a well-behaved black Labrador on a lead on either hand, and I wondered vaguely if it was the law. No, look, there was a yellow one over there.
‘Um, yes, why not?’ I mumbled distractedly.
Maggie had already beetled off up the hill with my stick. I couldn’t quite make out which tweedy back she was accompanying, but I didn’t really care. I was thinking about Seffy and Cassie. As we crunched through the frosty autumn leaves, Imogen prattled away beside me in a lovely familiar fashion, about her children, as women do: finding common ground. Hal took his place and we stood back a bit to watch. One was on her gap year, she told me, another at university; the eldest son in the City. It occurred to me she didn’t look old enough for such grown-up children but perhaps she’d married young. How young? As young as Seffy and Cassie? Don’t be silly, Hattie. But I could feel myself becoming a bit precarious. A bit unsteady. Perhaps Imogen was older than she looked? Early fifties, even? And perhaps a life of luxury was the answer; the way to keep one’s bloom. Is that how you got through the menopause?
‘Sorry?’ She looked startled, and it occurred to me I’d voiced the question out loud: ‘Is that how you got through the menopause?’ She flushed, staring at me.
I cleared my throat. ‘Through… the maze of paws. In the morning, when you come down. Two dogs is a lot.’ I faltered, endeavouring to look a bit unhinged, which wasn’t hard.
‘Oh. Yes,’ she agreed uncertainly. ‘But actually one belongs to our housekeeper,’ she added shortly.
‘Ah!’ I greeted this piece of information as if it were the key to life itself. The veritable Holy Grail. Nodded hard. ‘I see.’
After a bit, unsurprisingly, she moved away. Muttering something about a friend on the next stand, taking her dogs with her. Still feeling raw and unconnected, I sat numbly on a log. Watched as Hal, a few feet in front of me, scanned the sky keenly, gun poised. A pheasant flew over, low and slow, an easy target: he raised his barrel, and left it: it flew on. Then another, higher, faster this time – he fired and it spiralled down. The sound of gunfire rang out down the line, filling the air, and dogs scampered excitedly about, retrieving. It was a beautiful day, clear and bright: a bit tricky for the guns, I was told – too much glare – but lovely for us, the spectators. Enjoy, enjoy, I told myself furiously. Don’t think so much. Don’t spoil it.
The guns were spaced about thirty yards apart, so I could see Angus Harrison to my left, and then further up the valley Kit, and, surprisingly, no Maggie perched behind. That would disappoint her. She must have hustled off prematurely with my stick in the wrong direction. I felt a pang of relief, then checked myself.