A Delicate Truth A Novel

bath , are you, Probyn?’
    ‘Drowning, waving, the lot!’
    A yellowing straw boater from his Cambridge years hascaught his eye and, hanging beneath it, a striped blazer of the same period: perfect for my Brideshead look. An ancient pair of white ducks will complete the ensemble. And for that touch of foppery, his antique walking stick with scrolled silver handle, a recent acquisition. With knighthood, he had discovered a harmless thing about walking sticks. No trip to London was complete without a visit to the emporium of Mr James Smith of New Oxford Street. And finally – whoopee! – the fluorescent socks that Emily had given him for Christmas.
    ‘Em? Where is that girl? Emily, I require your best teddy bear immediately!’
    ‘Out running with Sheba,’ Suzanna reminded him from the bedroom.
    Sheba, their yellow Labrador. Shared their last posting with them.
    He returned to the wardrobe. To set off the fluorescent socks he would risk the orange suede loafers he’d bought in Bodmin at a summer sale. He tried them on and let out a yip. What the hell? He’d be out of them by tea time. He selected an outrageous tie, squeezed himself into the blazer, clapped on the boater at a rakish angle and did his Brideshead voice:
    ‘I say, Suki, darling, do ya happen to remember where I put m’ bally speech notes?’ – posing hand on hip in the doorway like all the best dandies. Then stopped, and lowered his arms to his sides in awe. ‘Mother of pearl. Suki, darling. Hallelujah!’
    Suzanna was standing before the cheval mirror, scrutinizing herself over her shoulder. She was wearing her late aunt’s black riding habit and boots, and the white lace blouse with its stock for a collar. She had pulled her strict grey hair into a bun and fixed it with a silver comb. On top of it she had set a shiny black topper that should have been ridiculous but to Kit was utterly disarming. The clothes fitted her, the period fitted her, the topper fitted her. She was a handsome, sixty-year-oldCornishwoman of her time, and the time was a hundred years ago. Best of all, you’d think she’d never had a day’s illness in her life.
    Pretending to be unsure whether it was permitted to advance further, Kit made a show of hovering in the doorway.
    ‘You are going to enjoy it, aren’t you, Kit?’ Suzanna said severely into the mirror. ‘I don’t want to think of you going through the motions just to please me.’
    ‘Of course I’m going to enjoy it, darling. It’ll be a hoot.’
    And he meant it. If it would have made old Suki happy, he’d have put on a tutu and jumped out of a cake. They’d lived his life and now they would live hers, if it killed him. Taking her hand, he raised it reverently to his lips, then lifted it aloft as if he were about to dance a minuet with her before escorting her across the dust sheets, down the staircase to the hall, where Mrs Marlow stood clutching two posies of fresh violets, Master Bailey’s flower of choice, one each.
    And standing tall beside her, dressed in Chaplinesque rags, safety pins and battered bowler hat, their peerless daughter, Emily, recently returned to life after a disastrous love affair.
    ‘You all right there, Mum?’ she asked briskly. ‘Got your make-me-betters?’
    Sparing Suzanna a reply, Kit gives a reassuring pat to his blazer pocket.
    ‘And the squeezer, for in case?’
    Pats the other pocket.
    ‘Nervous, Dad?’
    ‘Terrified.’
    ‘So you should be.’
    The Manor gates stand open. Kit has pressure-washed the stone lions on the gateposts for the occasion. Costumed pleasure-seekers are already drifting up Market Street. Emily spots the local doctor and his wife, and nimbly attaches herself to them, leavingher parents to process alone, Kit comically doffing his straw boater to left and right and Suzanna managing a sporting shot at the royal wave as they confer their praises in their separate ways:
    ‘Gosh, Peggy darling, that’s so absolutely charming ! Wherever did you get such lovely satin from?’ Suzanna exclaims to the postmistress.
    ‘Well fuck me, Billy. Who else have you got under there?’ murmurs Kit, sotto voce , into the ear of portly Mr Olds, the butcher, who has come as a turbanned Arab prince.
    In the gardens of the cottages, daffodils, tulips, forsythia and peach blossom raise their heads to the blue sky. From the church tower flies the black-and-white flag of Cornwall. A bevy of equestrian children in hard hats comes trotting down the street,