sounds like a good idea,’ Carol said, with a confidence she didn’t feel.
‘OK,’ he beamed. ‘See you there first period after lunch then?’
All these years on and Carol could still feel that intense little flutter in the pit of her stomach that he had made her feel then. Across the kitchen Raf was looking at her quizzically.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘You look a bit pale.’
Carol made a real effort to smile. How could she possibly tell him? ‘I’m fine.’
‘I love you,’ Raf said gently. ‘And I’ll be here…’
What was that supposed to mean? For an instant Carol wondered if Raf had some inkling of what was going through her mind, some Celtic intuition that told him that she was floundering. She stared at him. Why didn’t she want to commit herself to living with Raf? Was that what all this hankering after Gareth was re ally about? Wasn’t she aching for a fantasy, some perfect love that had never re ally had the chance to blossom, or go wrong or get dull or cruel? Fancying Gareth after all these years was like loving a dead war hero; in her mind he hadn’t aged, he didn’t fart in bed and his hair hadn’t thinned or been combed over.
Raf’s expression crinkled up a little. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’
Carol waved her thoughts and his words away. ‘Just a bit nervous, that’s all. I mean, do I re ally want to see just how wrinkly everyone else is and know they’re thinking the same thing about me?’ she said with a grin. ‘All those old faces, all those old memories.’
‘And all those old flames?’ he added casually.
Carol stared at him. He knew. ‘Maybe,’ she hedged, aware of something that Shakespeare had written in another play about what a dead giveaway it was to protest too much. Any heated denials would only make things worse, not better. ‘There’s bound to be one or two but they’re probably balding with false teeth and half a dozen kids by now,’ she joked.
‘They?’
Carol felt a great rush of heat. ‘He,’ she said uncomfortably, cursing her inability to lie.
Raf nodded. She wondered if for an instant he felt worried or hurt or threatened. If he did, it didn’t show. Raf looked at her with his big brown eyes and smiled. ‘Well, have a good time and give my love to Diana. We’ll be fine, assuming we can avoid yoghurt poisoning.’
They both looked at Ollie, who made a big point of ignoring them.
‘God, I’m so glad that you arrived early,’ said Diana. ‘I was beginning to panic. I’ve got the list—did you receive any more replies or apologies?’
She was standing all alone in the huge vaulted hallway of Burbeck House. Once a great baronial manor, it was set in its own grounds at the far end of an impressive sweeping drive. The interior was now painted a pale and rather morbid shade of November afternoon grey. The enormous entrance hall was dotted with hessian pin boards screwed to walls that would have looked far more at home under rows of stags’ heads, axes, spears and suits of armour. A reception desk, dwarfed by stone columns, was set up inside the great double door and beside it Diana was standing, surrounded by various boxes, shopping bags, bits of costume and piles of books.
Carol pulled a sheet of paper out of her handbag. ‘All present and correct, Capt’n Bligh.’
‘Sorry,’ said Diana. ‘It’s just that I’ve been panicking. You found it all right, then?’ she continued, gathering assorted bits and pieces together.
‘Eventually,’ said Carol, bending down to help her. ‘It’s a bit out of the way, but it is such a great place. It was a good idea to hold it here, Di. Do you have any idea who designed the park? It almost looks like it might be Capability Brow—’ Glancing up, Carol could see from the anxious expression on Diana’s face that architecture and landscape weren’t the most pressing things on her mind. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘We’ve got a bit of a problem. Well, I’m not sure it’s a problem, exactly,’ she said, shifting her weight uneasily from foot to foot.
‘Spit it out,’ said Carol, straightening up under a carton full of props. ‘What’s the trouble? I’m good at crisis management.’
Diana looked even more uncomfortable, as if struggling to find exactly the right words.
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Carol, ‘you’ve accidentally booked the wrong weekend and nobody is coming after all. Just you, me and a box full of papier-mâché crowns, plastic swords and a pile of scripts?’
Diana shook her head. ‘Oh, no, as far as I know everyone is coming. It’s just that when I rang up to book the rooms I must have said something about it being a school reunion and the receptionist got hold of the wrong end of the stick and…’ Diana bit her lip and pulled one of her world-famous faces.
‘And?’ said Carol, willing the words out of Diana’s mouth.
‘And they’ve allocated us the dormitories.’
Carol stared at her. ‘The dormitories?’
‘Uh-huh, you know—bunk beds, communal washrooms. They thought we were some sort of school party.’
Carol laughed. ‘You’re joking?’
‘No. We’ve been allocated segregated dormitories in the east wing with separate accommodation for the members of staff. I couldn’t understand why the weekend was so cheap; I thought that maybe it was their group rate. Now I know why.’
Carol put the box down. It wasn’t that serious, surely—but then again how long was it since she’d slept a dozen to a room in a bunk bed? Probably the last school drama tour.
‘And there’s no chance of changing it?’
Diana shook her head miserably. ‘Apparently not, I’ve already tried. Unfortunately, they’ve got some sort of delegation of lay church workers in this weekend and they’re all very keen on personal space—not seeing each other in their jarmies and rollers, that sort of thing, and that’s just the men. No, I’m afraid we’re stuck upstairs in Teddy Towers.’
‘Teddy Towers?’ Carol laughed.
‘It’s what we call it when we bring the Sunday school kids here. Come on, I’ll show you what I mean. I’m just hoping that people won’t mind too much.’ Diana sounded genuinely worried.
‘I’m sure it’ll be fine,’ said Carol, in what she hoped would pass for a jolly, ‘it’ll be all right, how bad can it be, after all it’s only for a couple of nights’ sort of voice.
‘Bloody hell…’ hissed Carol as they crested the stairs up into the east wing.
Along one apparently unending landing were two dormitories. The corridor was lit by a series of bare bulbs that dangled on long flexes from high, hugely ornate ceilings. There were two communal bathrooms, two staff bedrooms and a job lot of six-inch-wide border printed with assorted toy town animals that ran the whole length of the wall—in fact as far as the eye could see—all pasted to the battle-scarred plaster at around six-year-old paw-print height. Above the frieze the walls were painted an unpleasant shade of nursery yellow. The ceilings too. Here and there on the walls were outcrops of teddies glued in bouquets of beardom. While below the frieze everything—radiators, skirting boards, even wall sockets and what looked like oak panelling—was painted the same unrelenting battleship grey that graced the rest of the house.
‘Oh, don’t worry, it gets worse,’ said Diana grimly as they headed along the corridor.
She pushed open a heavy door on which someone had Blu-Tacked a laminated sheet of A4 paper which read ‘Girls/Drama Tour’, and then stood aside to let Carol step past her.
‘Sweet Jesus…’ breathed Carol as the door swung open.
The enormous