John Carré - A Delicate Truth

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, leaving her 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, escorted by the redoubtable Polly from the Granary Riding School. The festivities are too much for the lead pony and it shies, but Polly is on hand to grab the bridle. Suzanna consoles the pony, then its rider. Kit takes Suzanna’s arm and feels her heart beating as she presses his hand lovingly against her ribs.

It’s here and now, Kit thinks, as the elation rises in him. The jostling crowds, the palominos cavorting in the meadows, the sheep safely grazing on the hillside, even the new bungalows that deface the lower slopes of Bailey’s Hill: if this isn’t the land they have loved and served for so long, where is? And all right, it’s Merrie bloody England, it’s Laura bloody Ashley, it’s ale and pasties and yo-ho for Cornwall, and tomorrow morning all these nice, sweet people will be back at each other’s throats, screwing each other’s wives and doing all the stuff the rest of the world does. But right now it’s their National Day, and who’s an ex-diplomat of all people to complain if the wrapping is prettier than what’s inside?

At a trestle table stands Jack Painter, red-headed son of Ben from the garage, in braces and a Stetson. Beside him sits a girl in a fairy dress with wings, selling tickets at four pounds a shot.

‘You’re free , Kit, dammit!’ Jack cries boisterously. ‘You’re the bloody Opener, man, same as Suzanna!’

But Kit in his exultation will have none of it:

‘I am not free, thank you, Jack Painter! I am extremely expensive. And so is my dear wife,’ he retorts and, happy man that he is, slaps down a ten-pound note and drops the two pounds change into the animal-welfare box.

A hay cart awaits them. A beribboned ladder is lashed against it. Suzanna grips it with one hand, her riding skirts in the other, and with Kit’s help ascends. Willing arms reach out to receive her. She waits for her breathing to calm down. It does. She smiles. Harry Tregenza, The Builder You Can Trust and celebrated rogue, wears an executioner’s mask and brandishes a silver-painted wooden scythe. He is flanked by his wife wearing bunny ears. Next to them stands this year’s Bailey Queen, bursting out of her corsage. Tipping his boater, Kit plants chivalrous kisses on the cheeks of both women and inhales from each the same waft of jasmine scent.

An ancient hurdy-gurdy is playing ‘Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do’. Smiling energetically, he waits for the din to subside. It doesn’t. He flaps an arm for silence, smiles harder. In vain. From an inside pocket of his blazer he extracts the speech notes that Suzanna has nobly typed for him, and waves them. A steam engine emits a truculent shriek. He mimes a theatrical sigh, appeals to the heavens for sympathy, then to the crowd beneath him, but the din refuses to let up.

He goes for it.

First he must bawl out what he amusingly calls the Church Notices, though they concern such non-ecclesiastical matters as toilets, parking and baby-changing. Does anyone hear him? Judging by the faces of the listeners hanging around the foot of the hay cart, they don’t. He names our selfless volunteers who have laboured night and day to make the miracle happen, and invites them to identify themselves. He might as well be reading out the names of the Glorious Dead. The hurdy-gurdy has gone back to the beginning. You’re Master of Misrule too. They’ll expect you to be funny . A quick check of Suki: no bad signs. And Emily, his beloved Em: tall and watchful, standing, as ever, a little apart from the pack.

‘And lastly, my friends, before I step down – though I’d better be jolly careful when I do!’ – zero response – ‘it’s my pleasure, and my very happy duty, to urge you to spend your hard-earned money unwisely , flirt recklessly with one another’s wives’ – wished he hadn’t said that – ‘drink, eat and revel the day away. So hip hip ’ – tearing off his boater and thrusting it in the air – ‘ hip hip! ’

Suzanna raises her topper to join his boater. The Builder You Wouldn’t Trust Further Than You Could Throw Him can’t raise his executioner’s mask, so punches the air with his clenched fist in an unintended communist salute. A long-delayed Hooray! tears through the loudspeakers like an electrical fault. To murmurs of ‘Good on you, my handsome!’ and ‘Proper job, my robin!’, Kit clambers gratefully down the ladder, lets his walking stick fall to the ground and reaches up to take hold of Suzanna by the hips.

‘Bloody wonderful, Dad!’ Emily declares, appearing at Kit’s side with the walking stick. ‘Want a sit-down, Mum, or flog on ?’ – using a family expression.

Suzanna, as ever, wants to flog on.

The royal tour of Our Opener and His Lady Wife begins. First, inspect shire horses. Suzanna the born country girl chats to them, strokes and pats their rumps without inhibition. Kit makes a show of admiring their brasses. Home-grown vegetables in their Sunday best. Cauliflowers that the locals call broccoli: bigger than footballs, washed clean as a pin. Home-made breads, cheeses and honey.

Sample piccalilli: tasteless but keep grinning. Smoked salmon pâté excellent. Urge Suki to buy some. She does. Linger over Gardening Club’s floral celebration. Suzanna knows every flower by its first name. Bump into MacIntyres, two of life’s dissatisfied customers. Ex-tea-planter George keeps a loaded rifle at his bedside for the day the masses assemble at his gates. His wife, Lydia, bores for the village. Advance on them with outstretched arms:

‘George! Lydia! Darlings! Marvellous! Super dinner at your house the other night, really one of those evenings. Our turn next time!’

Move gratefully to our bygone threshing machines and steam engines. Suzanna undaunted by stampede of children dressed as anything from Batman to Osama. Kit yells at Gerry Pertwee, village Romeo, squatting up on his tractor in Red Indian headdress:

‘For the umpteenth time, Gerry, when are you going to mow our bloody paddock?’ And to Suzanna, aside: ‘Damned if I’ll pay the bugger fifteen quid an hour when the going rate’s twelve.’

Suzanna waylaid by Marjory, rich divorcee on the prowl. Marjory has set her sights on the dilapidated greenhouses in the walled garden of the Manor for her Orchid Club, but Suzanna suspects it’s Kit she’s set her sights on. Kit the diplomat rides to the rescue: