Lysander laughed. ‘Yours isn’t that much different, Tits.’
Tania frowned, glancing at Gull. ‘Anyway, let’s not worry about that, now. The storm’s bound to die down tomorrow, don’t you think?’
Gull poured more wine and Tom cleared the plates, replacing the main course with a selection of authentic-looking Indian sweets and a pot of strong coffee.
‘These look like fudge,’ Clara said, picking up one of the slices, a delicate milky underneath with a chocolate-coloured top. ‘What are they, Tom?’
‘They’re calledbarfi,’ he said. ‘They’re made with milk. The green ones are flavoured with pistachios and the plain ones are dipped in dark chocolate.’
‘What did you call them?’ Lysander said. ‘Barf? Yum. Tuck in, everyone.’ He chuckled at his own pre-teen joke.
‘No,’ Tom said, undented. ‘Barfi. You’re partly right, though. The word does come from an old Persian wordbarf, but it actually means “snow”. I thought that was apt.’
Clara smiled, then took a bite. They were good. ‘And you made them?’
Tom nodded. For the first time, Clara saw some colour in his cheeks. He looked at her, at the half-eaten sweet still in her hand. ‘Do you like it?’
‘I love it,’ she said, watching the smile spread across his face as she popped the rest of it into her mouth and let the milky sweetness dissolve on her tongue.
While she set out the Scrabble board, Lysander began to quiz Gull. He started with questions about the size of his farm– which was measured in something called hectares, a measurement with which Clara had a vague familiarity, even if she couldn’t remember if they were larger or smaller per unit than an acre– and then he progressed onto a series of statements about how uncultured the countryside was, when you got right down to it, and how he couldn’t understand how anyone could actually bear tolivein the arse-end of nowhere.
Gull proved himself remarkably resilient. He answered Lysander’s questions and explained– as if to a child– that Haslemere wasn’t actually the arse-end of anywhere. And that he loved the fact that from the summit of one of the hills on the farm it was possible to see for more than ten miles in every direction.
‘You can see forty miles from the Shard,’ Lysander said.
‘I suppose that might be true, but my view is filled with a lot more green, and a lot less grey,’ Gull replied. ‘I prefer my panorama, but each to their own.’
‘Will you show me one day?’ Tania said, almost under her breath.
‘Of course I will.’
‘Jesus wept,’ Lysander said. ‘Somebody bring me a sick bag. Never mind thebarfi, I really am about to barf. Get a room, big sister … Or should that be get a room again?’ He took a large swig of wine, then topped up his glass.
‘Lysander, don’t,’ Rose said, her features tight and tense.
‘Why not? Tits goes through men like she does shoes.’ He raised his glass in Gull’s direction. ‘Forewarned is forearmed, one bloke to another and all that.’
Gull raised his glass in return. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Us uncultured country bumpkins need all the help we can get.’
Clara wondered if her game of Scrabble was going to work. Madeleine seemed relieved when she told them it wasn’t going to be an ordinary game and the bickering ceased as she sorted the tiles into piles.
‘I thought the whole point was that we picked the tiles at random,’ Tania said, an amused frown on her face.
‘Not this time,’ Clara said as she finished her sorting. ‘I’m in charge of this.’
Lysander topped up his glass again, offering the bottle around the table. ‘My darling Clara can order me around any day of the week,’ he said. ‘Just tell me what we’re doing, and I’ll comply.’
Tania inhaled a strained laugh. ‘First time for everything,’ she said, under her breath.
‘Right,’ Clara said, decisively. ‘Round one. You each need to pick a pile, and then make an animal name from the tiles you’ve chosen. Any questions?’
‘Is this Scrabble for imbeciles, darling?’ Lysander asked.
‘Your words, not mine, Lysander,’ Clara said.
Gull huffed a laugh, then took a pile of tiles. The others followed suit. Clara sat back and watched.
Tania was first to place ‘elephant’ on the board. ‘Does it matter where we put them?’ she asked.
