‘Of course you could,’ she insisted, impatient.
‘But I don’t know what to say no to, because no one has asked me anything.’
‘You really don’t know?’
‘No, and maybe there is nothing to know.Maybe I have made it all up.But I don’t think so.And sometimes I think even your uncle, Chips, knows more than I do.And I do know that I despise what my family has become – we are lapdogs, a pekinese with a bow around its neck, that Hitler may pet and tease and show off.My father thinks that we play the Nazis at a clever game, but we don’t.They play us.’
‘So many plays and plots.’She rolled her eyes.‘First lions and now dogs … You know how silly this all sounds?’
‘Only for someone who has always lived in England.In Germany, everyone has been scared and suspicious for a long time.’
‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ she said, suddenly brusque.‘I think not only is this a lot of nonsense, it’s a lot of dangerous nonsense.It’s just the kind of thing that starts almost like a game – and indeed you sound to me like you are showing off – but ends up being far too serious when the wrong person decides to take it seriously.’
‘You are surprising,’ he said then.‘I thought you were just like English girls.Tennis.Horses.Always hearty.Secretly embarrassed by opera—’
‘Not so secretly,’ she said.
‘—fonder of dogs than people.A person made in a mould that has already turned out thousands of others.’
‘Well, I didn’t have a very good impression of you either,’ she said with a laugh.
‘I know that.King Midas’ son.’He laughed and Brigid did too.
‘What are you both laughing at?’Kick came upon them.She had a bottle of lemonade which she offered first to Brigid, who accepted and took a long swig, then Fritzi, who refused with a shake of his head.
‘Nothing here, that’s for sure,’ Brigid said.‘Surely we must be finished exploring by now?’
‘You obviously don’t know my mother,’ Kick said wryly.‘Not while there is a stone unturned, a question unasked.’
‘I almost feel sorry for Chips,’ Brigid said gloomily.‘Though not as sorry as I feel for myself.’
‘He does seem to have run out of answers,’ Fritzi agreed.‘I’ve seen him looking quite desperately at the guidebook twice now.’
‘That’s my mother for you,’ Kick said.
It was, Brigid thought, exasperated, but also fond, even admiring.She could hear Rose now ‘… imagine the hub of activity this must have been?A place for everyone to meet and tell their news.’
Despite herself, Brigid found that she was imagining – a girl like herself, with the same dreams and worries, with a store of sad and happy memories, little songs that she sang, a pet name her mother called her.A girl who worried that her hair was too coarse and her eyes less pretty than her sister’s.Who had come here with a basket and the hope of meeting someone in particular.Whose heart thumped hard just like Brigid’s did.And that girl, who was just as real for a second as she herself was, had grown and changed and lived and died and been remembered and then forgotten.
The thought made Brigid dizzy because of what it meant.If that girl had been real, then she too, just as real, would one day be nothing.
‘Are you alright?’Kick asked.‘You look awfully odd.’
‘I’m hungry.’
The picnic was as dreadful as picnics usually were, Brigid decided.No spot was comfortable once you actually sat there.The plaid blanket was hairy, and scratched at her bare legs so that she had to sit on her sunhat, which crushed it.The food, so pretty-looking packed into the big wicker basket in porcelain containers with pewter lids, then laid out on the patterned china plates, was altogether less appealing when you had to fight for it with wasps and ants.The ambassador took his sandwiches back to the car with him.His wife sat on a rock with Chips and made the best of it in a way that was elegant and determined and disappointed and was, Brigid thought, the way she did almost everything.
She and Kick and Fritzi ate a great deal and drank lemonade from a stone bottle that was still cold, but the many different foods – chicken, tongue, a potato salad – made her feel sick.She was still chilly.
‘Take my jacket,’ Fritzi said, seeing her shiver.He placed it around her shoulders.
‘Thank you.’She found now that being warmer made her feel sleepy.She stretched out on the lumpy ground and shut her eyes.Lying flat, the wind was less noticeable, and she had just begun to drift off to the sound of Kick and Fritzi chatting beside her when Chips bustled up.
‘Time to get on,’ he said.‘Will you pack up the picnic?We’ve been gone quite long enough.’
What, she wondered, did he imagine might have happened in their absence?
It was surprisingly hard to pack the basket back as it had been when they opened it.Only Fritzi seemed able to get the hang of it: ‘The preserve jar goes into the tea mug, see?And the plates stack – dinner plate, side plate, saucer – one on top of the other, before you buckle them back in again.’He wouldn’t allow Brigid to tumble the dishes and cutlery in any old how, saying, ‘But it won’t close if you do that.’
