‘I need the keys,’ Mark repeated.

‘What keys?’ asked James, confused and embarrassed for Mark. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ People were beginning to look at them.

‘For the garage,’ said Mark. ‘I need the car.’

James put a hand on Mark’s arm and led him away from the crowd.

‘Mark,’ he said quietly, ‘I can’t let you take the car. Not today. Not like this.’

Mark was older than James and considerably bigger. He tore his arm free and glared at James with such anger in his eyes that James feared he might hit him, but in the end he just swore and stormed off.

‘I’ll find Perry,’ he shouted over his shoulder. ‘He’ll let me take it.’

James and Perry were the only two members of the society who had keys to the garage.

‘What the devil was all that about?’ said Pritpal, fitting a flower into his buttonhole. ‘What car was he talking about?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said James, thoughtfully. ‘He’s upset. Forget it.’

James hadn’t told anyone outside the society about the car. He had let Pritpal in on some of his secrets, but not all – even your best friends are liable to blab.

‘Do you think he will be all right?’ said Pritpal.

James watched Mark disappearing over the bridge, scattering boys in his path. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, trying not to sound worried. ‘I hope so.’

Two hours later, James was strolling with his Aunt Charmian, trying to get a glimpse past a great crush of people at the cricket match being played on Agar’s Plough between the school XI and the Eton Ramblers, a team of old Etonians. Nearby, on Upper Club, a band from the Rifle Brigade was playing a lively tune, but it was nearly drowned out by the roar of chatter coming from the circulating crowd, as parents caught up with the latest gossip and boasted about how well their boys were doing at the school.

James caught sight of Andrew Carlton, standing bored and restless as his parents pestered a bishop. Charmian didn’t know anyone else here, but she enjoyed the spectacle, observing it all with the detached eye of an outsider, and James enjoyed showing her around.

Charmian was an anthropologist, and had travelled the world studying different peoples and cultures. In her time she had lived with Eskimos in Greenland, the Tuareg in the Sahara, the Mindima mud men of Papua New Guinea and the Paduang hill tribes of Burma, whose women stretched their necks with heavy brass rings, but she had seen nothing more exotic than this gathering at Eton.

‘I really should know the significance of all this,’ she said, an amused grin on her face. ‘But I’m afraid I don’t.’

‘It’s to celebrate King George the Third’s birthday,’ James explained.

‘Why on earth would anyone want to do that?’ said his aunt with a little laugh.

James laughed as well. ‘He was a great friend of the school, apparently. He was always hanging about the place, chatting to the boys.’