And then there is a horrified pause as something else seems to occur to her. ‘They’re not thinking of actually moving here, are they, and building something?’

‘Look, I have no idea about their arrangements,’ I say, my heart breaking for her. ‘I’ve barely seen Clare since Cambridge. You know her much better than I do – you were practically her next-door neighbour and best friend in London.’ But I am lying. I have more than an idea why Clare wants to come to Honeyborne. And I wish, from the bottom of my heart, that she had never told me anything. That she’d never come near this place.

I put the car into fourth gear as we are on the Golden Mile between Godminster and Larcombe, with views stretching for miles both sides of the road, crops and hills and distant moorland a purple smudge on the far horizon, and race to get Mimi home to bed, to rest, to recover.

PART TWO

Mimi

‘Oh goodie,’ I say, as the roar of an approaching vehicle takes the shape of a quad bike with a trailer. ‘What ho, Clive.’

Maddocks is at the wheel of the top-of the-line quad. Without looking at anyone, or answering my merry greeting, he leaps down and removes a folded-up trestle table from the trailer, sets it up and then draws a folded linen tablecloth from one of his two matching, monogrammed LL Bean canvas bags, and then, within seconds, spreads the surface with Thermoses, sandwiches, fruitcake, a tea urn, napkins, glasses, tin mugs and two ruby bottles of homemade sloe gin.

‘Oooh – lunch!’ I announce, rubbing my hands and moving towards the table. Even though it’s been only an hour and a bit since our last meal, standing around in the fresh air always makes me hungry like the wolf.

The day started bright and early at Court Place.

Those who were staying were tucking into a large cooked breakfast in the main kitchen (as opposed to the staff kitchen and pantry). Homemade sausages, home-cured bacon, field mushrooms, toast, coffee, Cath’s own mulberry and pistachio granola, freshly squeezed blood-orange juice in jugs and newspapers were all being devoured amid plenty of bluff chat about high birds and bags.

Occasionally a gun and his wife make an entrance. As I haven’t been staying, it’s not clear at this stage who’s a house guest and who has come to shoot, although what is clear is that both categories are kitted out in the same plaid uniform: thick woolly stockings folded over just below the knee adorned with little woolly pennants and initials, trews or breeks, a tank-top over a Tattersall shirt, a knitted tie, a flat cap and, over the top, a shooting jacket with a big brass zip, multiple poppered pockets, all in palette of pale greens and soft browns. And that’s just the women.