Moonshine

We travelled the rest of the way in silence. The telephone was ringing as I walked into the hall. I picked up the receiver. I was still angry but I attempted to sound even-tempered.

‘Hello?’

‘Roberta? This is Burgo Latimer. Will you have dinner with me tonight?’

‘Dinner? I couldn’t possibly—’

‘Please don’t say no. If I don’t have a decent conversation with somebody human I may go mad. I’ve had all I can take of the burghers of Sussex. I’m beginning to wonder if there’s anyone on this earth who feels remotely as I do about anything. It’s a lonely feeling. Surely you know what I mean?’

I remembered liking his voice before, that hurried way of speaking, as though his mind was working furiously.

‘Should you be a Conservative MP if you feel like that?’

‘Can you think of a single job in which you don’t have to put up with people whose company you don’t enjoy?’

I thought of my own job. Of my boss, who was known to everyone as Dirty Dick because he was ineptly lecherous; of Marion in the antiquarian books department who was a poisonous gossip; of Sebastian in Musical Instruments who was morbidly touchy and difficult.

‘How do you know we have anything in common? I don’t suppose I said more than twenty words.’

‘That’s because I did all the talking. I want a chance to repair that. Besides, I knew before the twenty words. One does know these things.’

Was he right? It was true that I had felt disappointed to discover that he was, of all breeds of men, a ‘scurvy politician’, historically despised, universally mistrusted. I remembered that he also had a wife.

‘I’m afraid I’d rather starve to death than set foot in the Carlton House Hotel again.’

‘There you are! We do feel the same. I think you’ll find where we’re going the food will at least be all right.’

‘You seem to presume your invitation’s irresistible.’

‘I’m hoping against hope.’

The truth was, I was not only lonely myself but also horribly bored. Oliver was dear to me but not much of a companion as he was asleep most of the time I was awake. My parents limited their communication to exchanges of practical information and complaints. Mrs Treadgold and I had a handful of conversational topics – my mother’s progress or the lack of it; Mrs Treadgold’s own health which was undermined by every germ, allergy and chronic disability to be found in her medical dictionary; and the previous night’s television programmes – which we ran through dutifully each day. The friends of my childhood had left Sussex years ago and fled to London or abroad.

‘Well … I don’t know. It seems rather odd. We hardly know each other …’

‘I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty.’

FIVE (#ulink_407f7cc9-373c-5186-b523-4f1e7c32e01d)

‘You’ve missed some wonderful scenery,’ said Kit.

I opened my eyes. I had been asleep.

‘Where are we?’

‘In the car-park of the pub where we’re stopping for lunch. I’d better put the hood up. You never know in Ireland when it’s going to rain.’

‘But it’s gloriously sunny.’

‘That doesn’t mean a thing. You’ll see.’

While Kit fastened the canvas roof I took stock of our surroundings, yawning. The inn, which stood on the main street of a small village, was low, white-washed and charming. Behind it rose dark trees and, behind them, more mountains.

‘Look at those mountains. That pair like raised eyebrows.’

‘Rather as you might expect, they’re called the Paps of Anu. She was a goddess of fertility.’

‘Of course. I should have known. But, being a woman, it never occurred to me that they bore the remotest resemblance to breasts.’

‘Can we men help behaving like children in a sweet shop when you women are so delicious and desirable?’

I examined myself in the rear-view mirror. Neither epithet could with truth have been applied to me. ‘I’ll need a little while in the Ladies’ with soap and a comb to get the smuts off my face and my hair to lie down.’

‘You go ahead. I’m going to nip across to that telephone kiosk to let my host know I’m about to descend on him.’

‘Supposing he’s away? Or he already has guests?’ I still felt guilty about having disrupted Kit’s plans.

‘He never goes away. And the house is large and infinitely accommodating. Don’t worry. The Irish are tremendously relaxed about these things. Dean Swift once travelled into the country to have dinner with some friends at the house of a stranger. Swift was a difficult, acerbic sort of fellow, as I’m sure you know, and he grumbled all the way there, but he was so delighted with the welcome he received, the standard of cooking, the excellence of the cellar, the elegance of the house and the arrangements made for his comfort, that he stayed for six months. Ireland’s changed since those days but the Irish themselves are as gregarious as ever.’

‘I can’t imagine many people I’d want to have to stay for six months. Certainly not someone as exacting and irritable as Swift.’

‘I shall do my best to be neither of those things.’

Ten minutes later I emerged, much tidier, from the cloakroom to find Kit sitting at a table in the bar, smoking a Gauloise, a bottle of wine in a plastic paint bucket full of ice at his elbow. I sat beside him and took a sip of wine, which was not good but not bad either. The bar was fairly dark and despite the warmth outside a fire burned in the hearth. We were the only people there.

‘This is lovely.’ I meant not just the wine but the liberating feeling of being a stranger in an unknown land.

‘I hope it’s cold enough. The Irish mostly drink beer and whiskey. An ice bucket is an unknown quantity outside the big towns.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I think it’s all charming.’ I admired the artwork, several religious pictures in primary colours, a photograph of the Pope in a cardboard frame decorated with tinsel and a reproduction of Holman Hunt’s Light of the World.

‘T’ere ye are at last, madam.’ A waiter came over to our table and winked at Kit. ‘Worth waiting for, wasn’t it? Madam’s as lovely as a rose. And what’ll you both be eating now? We’ve chicken or fish. But I’m t’inking the fish is a little past its best. I don’t say it’s off exactly but it’s got a smell on it I shouldn’t care to bring t’rough the house.’

It was the first time I had heard the famous brogue in its native setting: th pronounced as t and s preceding a consonant softened as in ‘pasht its besht’. It was beguiling.

We decided on the chicken and I asked for a glass of water.

‘I suspect the fish doesn’t exist,’ said Kit when he had gone. ‘Only he wanted, in a true Irish spirit of hospitality, to have an alternative to offer us.’

‘Really? How friendly and kind. Rather different from the English attitude, isn’t it?’

‘The Irish and the English have little in common. Except that neither nation is celebrated for its food. If I were you I’d have cheese instead of pudding. There isn’t much you can do to ruin a piece of good Irish cheddar. The last time I ordered apple pie in a country pub it was brought to my table in its cardboard box to reassure me it wasn’t a cheap homemade effort. The waitress kindly squirted the blob of cream from the aerosol can in front of me. You can understand it, really. When the majority of the population once lived on potatoes and buttermilk anything from a shop seems like luxury. The white tags on tea-bag strings are known as “wee glamours”.’

‘Not really?’ I laughed. ‘I think that’s delightful.’

Kit smiled at me. ‘I must say it’s cheering to be with someone who’s so ready to be pleased.’

‘I expect I sound idiotic. It’s just that recently things have been rather … difficult. This seems so different. It’s a relief to have left it all behind.’