A Desirable Residence - By Madeleine Wickham Page 0,70

parade isn’t too much of a nuisance to you.’

‘Not at all,’ said Ginny warmly. ‘We were just admiring it.’

‘Oh good,’ said Jonathan, a pleased surprise in his voice. Again he glanced at Alice, and her fixed stare hardened. Go away, she thought. Just go away and leave me alone.

‘I like your mask,’ said Duncan suddenly, in chastened tones.

‘Do you?’ Jonathan pulled it down over his face. ‘Actually,’ he said, his voice muffled, ‘I’m not too keen on costumes. But, you know, you have to go along with these things.’ He pulled the mask up again and beamed at Duncan. ‘If it attracts attention, then it’s worth doing, I suppose.’

‘Absolutely,’ said Duncan earnestly.

Ginny glanced round. Piers’s attention was elsewhere and Alice was still staring tautly at a far corner of the square. ‘Well,’ she said, smiling at Jonathan, ‘we must be getting on.’

‘Yes, well,’ Jonathan rubbed his hands together, ‘I must be going, too.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Time for some mulled wine.’

‘Mulled wine!’ said Ginny. ‘Lovely!’

‘It’s a bit of a tradition to finish the parade with mulled wine in one of the houses in the Cathedral Close,’ explained Jonathan. ‘One of the canons is a member of our society. He was asking after you,’ he addressed Alice tentatively. ‘Canon Hedges. You remember him?’

‘Oh, yeah. Right.’ Alice forced the words out like grape pips, and resumed her staring. Jonathan gave rather a crestfallen smile to Ginny.

‘Well, I’ll be off then,’ he said.

‘Good luck,’ said Duncan plaintively. ‘I hope you save lots of birds.’

‘Duncan!’ Ginny scolded as soon as Jonathan was out of ear shot. ‘He’ll think you’re taking the piss.’

‘But I wasn’t!’ wailed Duncan. ‘I feel awful! Alice, why didn’t you tell us your father was in the parade?’ Alice shrugged miserably. Now that her father had gone, she felt even worse. A painful remorse burned in her chest; an unwanted guilt made her head feel heavy. And yet she still cringed resentfully when she remembered her father’s appearance; his jolly voice; his stupid mask.

‘That’ll teach you, Duncan,’ Piers said cheerfully.

‘But I didn’t mean it!’ Duncan grabbed Alice’s shoulder. ‘Honestly! I didn’t mean any of that stuff! I just said it because . . .’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know why I said it. Anyway, I didn’t mean your father.’ Alice somehow managed to grin at him.

‘I know you didn’t,’ she said.

‘Well, I thought your father was really nice,’ said Ginny, with emphasis. ‘Really nice. Gosh . . .’ She seemed about to say something else, then stopped herself. ‘Didn’t you think he was nice, Piers?’ she said, instead.

‘Oh yes,’ said Piers vaguely. ‘Good bloke.’

He put an arm round Ginny’s shoulders, and Alice’s cheeks burned with renewed misery. Ginny and Piers must think she was a real cow to her father, she thought frantically. They’d probably hate her now. They’d probably stop asking her round. She’d never see Piers again. She couldn’t bear it. Everything was absolutely awful.

As Jonathan was making his way slowly to the Cathedral Close, he felt a tapping on his shoulder. For a brief, hopeful moment, he thought it might be Alice, coming to have some mulled wine after all. But as he turned round, he saw the thin, bright face of Anthea Witherstone.

‘I was very impressed by what you were saying earlier,’ she said, regarding him intently.

‘What?’ Jonathan gave her a puzzled look. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t quite remember.’

‘About the classics,’ Anthea said. ‘About the superiority of a classical education.’

‘I’m not sure I quite said that—’ Jonathan began to protest. But Anthea wasn’t listening.

‘I quite agree with you,’ she interrupted. ‘There’s something so, so . . . distinguished about the classics, isn’t there? Homer and Plato, and all those Greek gods . . .’ Jonathan gazed at her in bemusement as she prattled on. He’d been told that Mrs Witherstone was frightfully clever and highbrow. But she didn’t seem to have a sensible idea in her head. Then a phrase suddenly grabbed his attention.

‘. . . which is why I’d like Daniel to come to you for extra coaching,’ she was saying. He stared at her.

‘Sorry, I didn’t quite catch all of that.’ He gave an apologetic gesture towards the surrounding, chattering crowd.

‘I’d like Daniel to come to you for extra coaching,’ Anthea repeated, a slight note of impatience in her voice. ‘In Latin and Greek and . . .’ she waved her hand vaguely, ‘. . . whatever else. For his Bourne scholarship.’ She looked at him suspiciously. ‘You do do extra coaching, don’t