‘We’ll start again,’ Delamere said. ‘Only just got going, anyway.’

He tossed a coin and Nicolas called correctly. Freddie handed me a mallet. ‘We’ll be blue and black,’ he said. ‘Association rules here. You know them?’

The coffee was mixing uneasily with the contents of my stomach but at least it had cleared my head. ‘I think so.’

‘Good. You play first. Start with the south-west hoop.’

The court was rectangular, with a peg driven into the grass at the centre, and three hoops on either side. Four of the hoops stood almost at the corners of the rectangle, with the two inner hoops on each side slightly closer to the peg. I vaguely remembered having to follow a pattern of the outer hoops first, then the inner hoops, then playing another circuit in semi-reverse before you could hit the peg. My hands felt hot and slippery with sweat. It was a long time to keep upright and sober.

Freddie placed both our balls on the ground near the south-west hoop. I gripped my mallet and swung gently at the blue ball. There was a thunk as it made contact, and I felt a momentary wash of relief, but the ball rolled uselessly to the side of the first hoop.

‘Never mind,’ Freddie called out behind me.

I turned around, face burning, and handed the mallet to Nicolas, then went to stand with the other players, a few yards away from the first hoop.

Lord Delamere took the first turn for the other side and the red ball sailed through the hoop. ‘I hear Black Harries was at Kariokor today,’ he said, lining up for a continuation stroke.

‘I didn’t see him,’ Freddie said. ‘And I’m surprised – I thought he never left Larmudiac.’

‘He sounds like a pirate,’ Sylvie said, lighting a cigarette.

‘He looks like one too – he’s got one hell of a black beard. And he’s probably the strongest man in Africa.’

‘They say he killed a leopard with a single blow to the head,’ Lord Delamere said. The red ball continued its path towards the second hoop, but stopped just short. Nicolas took the next turn and hit the black ball so it stopped just before the first hoop, dead on; Freddie grinned at me and I tried to return it.

‘He loves horses,’ he said, ‘but he doesn’t tame them. He has acres and acres of land, and he lets them roam around, but he doesn’t geld them or break them in or feed them.’

‘What happens with the horses if there’s a drought?’ Sylvie asked.

‘They starve.’

‘He sounds cruel.’

‘But they’re free.’ Freddie caught my eye. ‘Don’t you think animals prefer to be free, Theo?’

‘But Harries isn’t an animal,’ Sylvie said. Her lips were white and pressed together. ‘He knows they’ll starve and it’s in his power to do something about it.’