‘Yes. Pretending. You should know all about that.’

‘So many people we don’t even know. I’ll hide, I think.’

‘You’ll be at the front door, as she said. Welcome everyone with her. Good manners, guests of honour, it’ll be terrific.’

‘Terrifying.’

‘How can it be? After last night. She made it all so simple?’

‘A picnic has to have a reason, I think, anyway a sort of reason,’ Cuckoo had said the evening before. They were working at a long wooden table, stripping leaves from dozens and dozens of white carnations which she had massed into two large Copeland foot-baths and was spiking with tight-budded tuber-roses, ‘And so what I have decided is this: it’ll be Marcus’s birthday, how about that?’

‘Had mine already. March.’

‘Well, it’s your “un-birthday”. A picnic for an “unbirthday”. And do you awfully mind if I have you for a godson?’

‘You can have me for whatever you like. At any time.’

She had not looked at him. Thrust another stalk among the white heads. ‘I have simply masses of godsons, and goddaughters for that matter, all over the place, so there is no reason not to have you for another, is there? It makes it all feel a little more “in the family”? Do you know what I mean? A “belonging”?’

‘I know.’

‘So I’ll just say, casually, here and there, “This is my godson, Marcus Pollock, and today is his birthday. It joins us somehow, do you see? And I’d rather like that. Of course, I don’t really NEED an excuse for my picnics, but I do rather like to have one. Last year it was for the longest day … June the 21st.’

‘It’s that today.’

‘Which is why I want a different reason, theme if you like, this year. People enjoy it so much more. Picnics really do feel better with a point d’être, otherwise they are just eating fish-paste sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs in a swarm of ants on Box Hill. Mine are different.’

‘Fine. I’ll be honoured to be your godson or whatever, and have an “un-birthday” … but no one will know before, will they? Presents and that sort of thing? It would be dreadfully embarrassing.’

Cuckoo swept up a pile of leaves and stalk ends. ‘Goodness no! I simply couldn’t cheat to that extent. I shan’t say anything before. I mean I haven’t. It’s a frightful mistake. I did last year, told everyone why, and they all came dressed as Druids. Disaster.’

Leni put her hand on Cuckoo’s arm. ‘You are so wise, you know? And kind.’

‘Don’t tell a soul. It’s a deathly secret.’

‘To make us not feel shy … to feel not strange.’

‘That would be pointless, wouldn’t it?’

‘It’s what you call English good manners, isn’t it?’ said Marcus.