smiled calmly but made a mental resolve that they should do so no longer. It was true that I was giving Kit an edited account of the beginning of my affair with Burgo but while I was talking I found I was reliving some of the sensations of a year ago, when all my ideas about myself, of the sort of person I was and what I was capable of doing and feeling, had been knocked for six.
‘Now don’t get cagey,’ Kit continued. ‘As I said, it’s good for you to get things off that delightful chest. And I’m your ideal audience. A stranger you need never see again if you don’t want to. I promise I’m not being polite. I make my living assessing the outpourings of professional pen-drivers. I do it because I dearly love a yarn. And my first requirement is total involvement in the tale. As soon as I’m aware that my mind has wandered to when I’m supposed to be picking up my shirts from the laundry or whether the dog’s toenails need clipping, then the manuscript goes straight into the out tray. I’ll let you know if you’re boring me.’
‘What sort of dog is it?’
‘I haven’t actually got one. It was merely an illustration.’
‘Oh.’ I was disappointed. ‘I’ve always wanted a border collie. Or anything, really, that needs a home. But it wouldn’t be fair to keep one in London, when I’m working all day.’
‘You’re temporizing. I want to hear about Mr Latimer, the answer to a suffragette’s prayer. OK, you needn’t shatter my nerves with explicit descriptions of a sexual kind if you don’t want to – leave me leaning against the bedroom door – but get on with it, Bobbie. Your audience is agog.’
I got on.
‘Should we ask her to come with us, do you think?’ I asked Burgo as soon as we were in the hall.
‘Who?’
‘The woman in the magenta dress.’
‘Is that what you call it? I thought it was purple.’
‘She looked a little sorry to see you go.’
‘We ran out of things to say to each other halfway through dinner. She’s thankful to be rid of me.’
‘You’re not a very good liar, are you?’ By this time we had walked the length of a passage and reached a door that led into the garden.
Burgo laughed. ‘We had quite an interesting chat about the iniquitous doings of King Leopold in the Belgian Congo earlier on. But most of the conversation was about her. Her husband is a brute and a philanderer. And he drinks. Much as other husbands, in fact.’
‘Are you those things?’
‘I expect I would be if I spent much time being a husband. Anna is spared my uxorial shortcomings at least six months of the year. Look at that!’
The lawn shimmered with raindrops but the sky had cleared. The moon lay like a silver dish at the bottom of a large pond, quivering faintly as the wind breathed over the surface of the water. The shadows of the trees and hedges were knife-sharp.
‘It’s beautiful!’ I said. ‘And the scent!’
I could smell honeysuckle and roses and something else overwhelmingly sweet, perhaps jasmine. We strolled side by side, brushing against wet bushes that overhung the gravel path. The first lungfuls of fresh air banished any desire to yawn. The trunks of a stilt hedge laid shadow bars across our path. We entered a parterre of box, the squares filled with flowers, grey and lavender by moonlight. I ran my hand along the top of a hedge of rosemary, releasing a pungent scent which made me think of heat and Italy. And food.
‘How can you be hungry?’ asked Burgo when I confessed this. ‘You’ve just eaten five courses.’
‘That has nothing to do with it. With me hunger is connected with mood. I can’t eat properly when I’m not enjoying myself. I barely tasted the soup or the beef Wellington when I was being harangued by the beastly surgeon about Stalinist purges. At home when things are miserable I go for days eating practically nothing.’
‘I’ve got a bag of caramels. Will that do?’
‘It would be heaven.’ I took one from the packet he gave me. ‘What a strange thing to have in one’s dinner-jacket pocket.’
‘I always carry sweets. For any children I may come across. I’m supposed to kiss them but I’d rather not. Their runny noses put me off. So I give them a sweet and they like it much better than being mauled by a strange man.’
‘Are you being serious?’
‘You’re shocked by the cynical contrivances of a politician’s everyday life?’
‘I suppose I am.’
‘Well, don’t let that interfere with your enjoyment of the caramels.’
‘I’m ashamed to say it isn’t in the least. I haven’t had a toffee for years. It may well be the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten.’
‘Does that mean you’re particularly enjoying yourself?’
‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’
‘So you can flirt.’
‘Of course I can. But not with married men. It’s a strict rule of mine.’
‘And you’ve kept to it admirably. How wise you are, Roberta Pickford-Norton.’
‘Perhaps that’s going too far, but I’m not an absolute fool.’
He bowed gravely. ‘I’m sure of that.’
We walked slowly. I ate another toffee. Epicurus was right to insist that man’s principal duty was the pursuit of pleasure. We followed the path until it came to a narrow gap in a dense high hedge. He stood aside to let me go through. A square about half the size of the drawing room was filled with beds of roses. Behind them, forming one side of the square, was a small building with a pointed roof, upflung eaves and fretted windows in the oriental fashion.
‘A China House!’ I was thrilled. ‘What a marvellous thing to find! I had no idea there was one in this part of the world. A wonderful example of sharawadgi!’
‘What’s that?’
‘Sharawadgi is an eighteenth-century word. It means the first impression, the impact on the eye of something surprising and delightful. A shock of pleasure. In this century it’s been revived with particular application to landscape gardening and garden architecture. It’s a quasi-Chinese word made up by a European, no one quite knows who.’
‘Sharawadgi,’ Burgo repeated solemnly. ‘I like that.’
‘I don’t know if I’m telling you something you already know, but England was tremendously influenced by the Chinese taste in gardening in the eighteenth century. It became known as the anglais-chinois style when it filtered through to the rest of Europe, finally ousting the Italian and Dutch fashions. But because the buildings were made of wood, most of them have decayed. This must be one of just a handful. Forgive the lecturing tone.’
‘I like being told things. And I didn’t know.’
‘But how marvellous that Dickie has restored it. What a nice man he is. Can we go in?’
The door was stiff and Burgo had to be firm with it. The faint smell of new paint was quickly absorbed by the rose-scented air that accompanied us inside. Though the moonlight streamed in, the room was filled with gloomy shadows. As my eyes adjusted I made out a predictable set of garden furniture, a wicker sofa and two chairs grouped round a coffee table.
‘This should be decorated with Chinese scenes of dragons and tigers, water lilies and fans, that sort of thing.’ I walked about examining the room. ‘And there should be scarlet screens and lacquered furniture. And really the garden ought to be Chinese as well, with a pond and a bridge.’
‘You must