Freddie sprawled back in my chair, the ankle of his left leg resting on the knee of his right. He was extremely physical, his hands constantly on the move, tapping his fingers on his foot then on the arm of his chair.

‘I can’t believe you’ve never seen Kirlton,’ he was saying. ‘How can you call yourself a Scot? When we were growing up I thought it was more important than Buckingham Palace.’

‘I’ve never seen Buckingham Palace either,’ my mother said.

‘Now you’re just being contrary.’

My mother laughed. ‘So is it still in your family?’

‘No,’ Freddie said. ‘My grandmother sold it, cursed woman. Generations of bad money management. My father even has to,’ he leaned forwards, ‘work.’

She smiled. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘It’s true. For the Foreign Office. He was training me up to replace him, but I married an unsuitable woman and came out here to be a farmer instead.’

I felt a thrill at hearing Sylvie described as ‘unsuitable’ and wished my mother would ask him more about it.

‘Well, you’re young enough to get away with it,’ my mother said.

‘You noticed,’ Freddie said, grinning.

‘You can’t be more than twenty-eight.’

‘Twenty-five in May, actually. But you can’t be more than eighteen.’

‘Now you’re being cruel,’ my mother said.

Sylvie was talking to my father about the railway. People’s expressions, especially women’s, usually started to glaze over within five minutes of the topic, but Sylvie was keeping up with him, asking him questions. Every time she exhaled she turned away so the smoke wouldn’t go in my father’s face. In profile, hers seemed sharper somehow, her nose and jaw clearly defined and her lashes long and sweeping. Her eyes protruded slightly, and she kept her lids halfway down, blinking dreamily. She spoke dreamily too; if Freddie was a torrent, Sylvie was like a slow-moving river.

‘Look, Theo,’ Maud said, appearing at my side. ‘Roderigo’s gone to sleep … I think he’s snoring.’ She put her head down to listen.

‘Maud, don’t get too close to the monkey’s mouth,’ my mother said.

‘Freddie said he was tame,’ I said.

‘Mr Hamilton, Theo.’

‘Freddie, I insist,’ Freddie said. ‘Especially as we’re countrymen. It’s good to hear my name pronounced correctly for once.’

‘Was that meant for me?’ Sylvie asked.

Freddie took her hand and kissed it. ‘You torture it more than the natives.’

‘I’m not surprised if they don’t get it right,’ Sylvie said, withdrawing her hand. ‘They’re all terrified of you.’ She cocked an eyebrow at him and he laughed.

‘Edie’s got you pegged,’ he said, and turned to my parents. ‘Edie’s my wife.’

I felt my stomach lurch – as if I was back at school in one of the rugby games, a bigger boy rushing towards me. So they weren’t married, or at least not to each other.