The Dust That Falls from Dreams (36 page)

I
t was the custom at Christmas for the McCosh family to do two things. One was for them to wait upon the servants, the day before Christmas Eve, and treat them to a proper Christmas dinner, complete with a goose, roasted parsnips, chestnut stuffing, Christmas pudding, and their own present under the tree, to be opened afterwards. Mr McCosh’s father had got the idea from an army friend, who had told him that in the Queen’s Bays it was the custom at Christmas for the officers to wait upon the men.

Since this custom had been imported from Mr McCosh’s family, rather than from that of his wife, she, needless to say, heartily disapproved of it, even though it originated in the manners of an elite cavalry regiment. Mr McCosh, however, always entered into the spirit of the occasion, and enjoyed it with great gusto even if the servants did not.

He had to concede that it had lately become a somewhat melancholy occasion. Because the male servants had never returned, there were only Cookie and Millicent left, apart from the Honourable Mary FitzGerald St George, who had been given leave to return to her father for Christmas. Whereas before the war the two women had not felt at all self-conscious being served by the family, it was distinctly embarrassing and awkward now that there were only two of them.

This year Mrs McCosh seemed highly confused, and so the sisters ushered her upstairs for a rest, and created chaos as they attempted to conjure a decent supper out of their inexperience. Fortunately Cookie always made two puddings on Stir-Up Sunday, but now she sat in the withdrawing room with Millicent, lightheaded from the unpleasantly dry sherry that Mr McCosh insisted on plying them with, in a lather of worry about what appalling mistakes the sisters might be making in the kitchen. Fairhead sat smoking in one armchair, having exempted himself from kitchen
duty on the grounds of incapacity, masculinity and general incompetence. Gaskell, monocle in place, her short dark hair slicked back, smoked one Abdulla after another from her immensely attenuated cigarette holder. She was clad, as usual, in such a manner as to suggest that she was just about to go shooting. Her plan was to go to her own family the following day, and she was not helping in the kitchen on the grounds that it was already too crowded down there and she only knew how to cook under the stress of continuous bombardment. Daniel sat next to her, with both Esther and the cat on his knee, peeved at having been excluded from the kitchen, when it was quite clear to himself that the French half of him might have been quite useful. He found it agonising to have to sit still for any length of time anywhere, an agony that always seemed so much worse when it occurred in the McCosh withdrawing room, especially when Mrs McCosh was there. His own mother had gone to stay with her family in France for the Christmas period, and Daniel greatly wished that he could have been there with her. ‘Don’t worry,’ Mme Pitt had said,
‘une belle journée
we will have a Christmas all
ensemble en Normandie.’

Christabel came in, perspiring and flustered, and said, ‘Cookie, how long should we rest the goose?’

‘About half an hour, miss.’

‘Oh dear, I fear that supper will be frightfully late,’ said Christabel, hurrying out.

‘Would you like me to come and look, miss?’ called Cookie after her, in vain.

‘I wonder if it will snow,’ said Mr McCosh, like the good Scot that he was, who knows only to talk of the weather when no other topic is at hand.

At this point Millicent burst into tears, not merely because she had thought she might spend all her Christmases with Hutchinson, but because an unexpected catastrophe had descended on her family out of the blue, and she was unable to restrain her despair any further.

‘Millicent, what is it?’ asked Mr McCosh, who had been standing by the fireplace with his left arm on the mantelpiece and a substantial glass of neat whisky in his left hand.

‘What’s up, dear?’ asked Cookie, glad to have something to deal with.

Millicent sobbed into her hands. ‘We lost everything,’ she cried at last. ‘We got nothing left!’

‘Nothing left? What on earth do you mean, girl? Lost everything? Farrow’s? Do you mean Farrow’s?’

‘Yes, sir, it’s them lot. They’ve gone and taken everything, and we won’t never get it back. How are we going to manage? Every last penny, and now we’ve got nothing! All our savings! Gone!’

‘Oh good Lord,’ exclaimed Mr McCosh. ‘If I’d known you’d put all your savings into Farrow’s, I would have advised you against it. I know Farrow and Crotch, nice enough fellows, and very plausible, but their interest rates were quite mad. I wasn’t at all surprised when they crashed.’

‘Oh, you poor thing, you should have kept it all under the bed, like sensible folks,’ said Cookie.

‘Now we know where you keep yours,’ observed Fairhead. ‘You’ll have to put it somewhere else.’

‘How much have you lost?’ asked Mr McCosh.

‘About two hundred pounds, sir. It was everything that me and Mother saved up for years and years, sir.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Mr McCosh. ‘I suppose you know that the government has refused to bail them out? There’s no compensation?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’ve seen the people outside the branches. The weeping and wailing. It’s most distressing. I don’t know if you know Mr Hughes at the toy shop in Eltham? He told me he couldn’t pay for his Christmas stock, so I lent him the money at 2 per cent for three months. The least I could do. Damned bankers! They’re the scum of the earth. I can’t tell you how much trouble they’ve caused me and how many opportunities I’ve lost because of damn bankers. They only lend to you when they know perfectly well that you don’t need it. Damned bankers. Curse the lot of them.’

Millicent sobbed into her handkerchief, and Mr McCosh said again, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ sniffled Millicent.

‘Thank God I took my money out of Farrow’s to buy a motorcycle,’ said Daniel. ‘At least I have something to show for it.’

‘I withdraw my remark about the madness of buying it,’ said Fairhead.

‘Ah, but do you apologise?’

‘My dear fellow, that would be to go too far. You will undoubtedly come to grief on it one of these days. Should hospitals ever require spare parts, it will be to motorcyclists that they will turn.’

‘In future you should put any spare money into Martin’s Bank,’ said Mr McCosh to no one in particular. ‘They are very solid, very solid. There’s a branch in Eltham. Let us propose toasts, as usual. Millicent, to whom would you like to propose a toast?’

‘Um, my poor old mother, I think, sir.’

‘Well, here’s to Millicent’s poor old mother!’ exclaimed Mr McCosh, raising his glass. ‘God bless her!’

Gaskell said, ‘I propose a toast to Oxford University!’

‘My dear lassie, why?’

‘Because on the 14th of October they gave out degrees to women for the very first time.’

‘Ah, the monstrous regiment of women gains apace! Here’s to Oxford University!’

‘And a curse on Cambridge for not,’ added Gaskell.

‘A curse on Cambridge!’ toasted Mr McCosh. ‘What about you, Cookie?’

‘I’m toastin’ Charles Elmé Francatelli, sir.’

‘Who?’

‘Charles Elmé Francatelli, sir.’

‘Gracious me, Cookie. Who’s he? Sounds like a wop.’

‘Wrote my favourite cookbook, sir.
A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes
. That’s what it’s called. It’s a godsend, sir.’

‘For the working classes, Cookie? When do you get a chance to use that?’

‘All the time, sir. Wouldn’t have got through the war without it. You know that giblet pie you like, sir, and that toad-in-the-hole and them Norfolk dumplings and that rabbit pudding? Them’s all from that book, sir.’

‘Good God, are they? You’ve been cooking for us from a book
for the working classes? Well, I’m damned. Socialism comes to Court Road! Gracious me.’

‘Don’t tell the mistress, will you, sir? But he was a cook to Queen Victoria, sir, and I do use the posh book he wrote too.’

‘I certainly won’t. She would have a thousand fits. And kittens. But she would certainly be swayed by his having been a royal cook.’

‘I do use Countess Morphy’s book ’n’ all, sir.’

‘Cookie, you’re a dark horse,’ said Fairhead.

‘Oh well, here’s to what’s-his-name the gastronomical wop that got us through the war!’ Mr McCosh drank, and the company followed suit.

‘I propose a toast to Dame Nellie Melba,’ said Fairhead, ‘the most wondrous warbler of them all.’

‘And I to the monstrous regiment of women,’ said Mr McCosh, ‘and in particular to Cookie and Millicent, without whom we would all grind to an ignominious halt.’

‘Dame Nellie Melba and the monstrous regiment of women and Cookie and Millicent!’

At that moment Mrs McCosh entered, having woken from a nightmare and been drawn down by the pleasant aroma of cooked food. ‘Ah,’ she said as all the menfolk stood, ‘drinking the usual toasts, I see. I hope you have not forgotten Their Majesties.’

‘We drink the loyal toast after our own Christmas dinner, my dear, as you know.’

‘In that case let’s drink to King Constantine of the Hellenes.’

‘But why, my dear?’

‘He’s just been restored. One has to stand up for the principal of royalty, my dear, otherwise the whole world falls apart, as we know.’

‘I’d quite like to be restored,’ said Daniel, resisting the temptation to ask her whether her support of the principle of royalty extended to the Kaiser and the Emperor of Austria. ‘I’m exhausted after that drive from Partridge Green. I don’t think I have ever been so wet or so cold, not even at fifteen thousand feet. It would have taken minutes in a Snipe.’

Mrs McCosh glared at him, and then, as if having read Daniel’s thoughts, Gaskell said, in her languid, rather decadent drawl, ‘Well,
here’s to the Dutch handing over the Kaiser, so we can string him up.’

‘I feel sorry for the Kaiser,’ said Fairhead.

‘What?’ cried Daniel. ‘Are you mad?’

‘Oh, very probably. What I mean is that he seems to have wanted an empire in Europe, when the rest of us have already got one elsewhere. There wasn’t anywhere else to get one, really. And now everybody is going to hate and despise him forever, including his own relatives. He must be hiding in Holland, blushing with shame and embarrassment. He must be in Hell, actually, when you consider how omnipotent he was before. He’s been well and truly cast out of Paradise, I’d say.’

‘The man was a complete and utter fool,’ said Gaskell shortly. ‘Did he really think he could invade neutral countries and go to war with our Allies, and get away with it?’

‘Of course you’re quite right,’ said Fairhead, ‘but one can still feel sorry for a fool. Every paradise has a serpent hiding in it, doesn’t it? And he turned out to be his own serpent. A very great fool indeed, I’d say.’

‘I find your compassion quite inexplicable and inexcusable,’ said Mrs McCosh. ‘One simply doesn’t declare war on one’s relatives, especially in the royal family.’

‘Edward IV murdered his own brother,’ said Ottilie, ‘and I understand that the sultans murdered their brothers as a matter of course. It was fully expected of them.’

‘I hardly think one can call a sultan royalty,’ declared Mrs McCosh. ‘Why, they’re not even Christian!’

Rosie said, ‘Did he really want an empire? I thought he was just worried about being a sandwich between France and Russia, so he decided to knock out one and then go on and knock out the other.’

‘Ah, the Schlieffen Plan,’ said Fairhead. ‘Yes, you’re right about that.’

‘He was still an absolute fool,’ insisted Gaskell, her green eyes sparking with contempt.

‘May I change the subject?’ asked Daniel, his eyes aglow with mischief. ‘I have a surprise for you. An entertainment. I want everybody here at teatime. Without fail, including Cookie and Millicent, if that’s convenient.’

‘It’s hardly convenient,’ said Mrs McCosh, who had been making a vocation of irritating Daniel for some time now.

‘Of course it is,’ remonstrated her husband. ‘Where else would we be at teatime?’

‘How exciting,’ said Gaskell drily. ‘What a shame I shall not be here to see it.’

‘Christabel will send you a report,’ said Daniel. ‘In fact I will ask her to take photographs.’

At that very moment Christabel came in, even hotter and more flustered than before. ‘Talking about me?’ she said. ‘I hope it was nothing uncomplimentary. Dinner is served. Or, to be more precise, charred.’

‘Cookie, you will take my arm as always,’ said Mr McCosh.

‘And Millicent will take mine,’ said Daniel. He leapt to his feet and offered it to her.

Millicent blushed and placed her arm softly in his. She felt something like a spark pass between them at the contact, and she knew that he had felt it too. She suddenly wished that she had better clothes to wear, even though she was most grateful for Miss Rosie’s cast-offs. After dinner Ottilie would play the piano and she would probably have to take a waltz with Mr Daniel while Cookie took one with Mr McCosh.

Mrs McCosh remembered that it had not, after all, been so unpleasant to take a waltz with the footman, back when they still had one. A scintilla of Christmas spirit sparkled in her eyes, and then quickly faded. It was difficult to enjoy anything these days. She had got halfway through writing a Christmas card to Myrtle, before remembering.

D
aniel and Fairhead moved all the furniture to the edges of the room, rolled up the carpet and deposited it in the conservatory. Mrs McCosh was displeased, as it was not a man’s duty or vocation to decide upon the placing of furniture, particularly hers. She was further put out by Daniel’s informing her that there might be two extra people for dinner, and possibly to stay the night, but they would be bringing their own tent, as they were reluctant to cause inconvenience, and he was not going to tell anyone who they were, because that was part of the surprise.

‘A tent?’ she cried. ‘A tent? In this weather? In December? At Christmas?’

‘They are both exceedingly tough,’ said Daniel. ‘They have endured far worse than a night in a tent in Court Road, Eltham, and will think it very luxurious. Really, you shouldn’t worry at all. They’ll enjoy it.’

‘And if we are to feed them, where will they eat? If they are people of quality they should eat with us, but the dining table is already a most frightful squeeze. Of course, if they are of the common sort, they may eat in the kitchen.’

‘I have moved a card table into the dining room,’ said Daniel. ‘All it needs is a nice lacy tablecloth.’

‘Christmas is such a trial,’ said Mrs McCosh. ‘I do most sincerely wish the Lord had been born at some other time.’

Rosie, who had been listening to this conversation as she arranged some sprigs of red-berried holly in a vase at the corner table, said, ‘Mama, if He had been born at another time, then that would have been Christmas.’

‘We should have called it something else,’ replied Mrs McCosh loftily.

Ottilie came in and said, ‘When are we opening the presents?’
‘At the usual time,’ said Mrs McCosh. ‘We have “post office” at teatime on Christmas Day.’

‘Can’t we open them at breakfast? Then we’ll have all day to play with them. What about Esther? She’ll be desperate.’

‘No, my dear, anticipation is half the pleasure. Perhaps we shouldn’t tell her it’s Christmas until the evening.’

‘Mama, that’s hardly fair on the poor little thing,’ said Ottilie, and went out again.

‘Why do we give presents at Christmas?’ asked Daniel. ‘I’ve often wondered.’

‘Because that is what they do in the royal family,’ said Mrs McCosh. ‘One tends to emulate one’s betters, if one has any sense.’

‘It’s because God gave us His Son, and the Three Wise Men brought Him gifts,’ said Rosie impatiently. ‘We celebrate the gifts by giving them ourselves.’

‘Oh,’ said Mrs McCosh, disillusioned.

An hour before dark, a hammering was heard in the garden, and Daniel could be seen from the windows, erecting a neat military tent. He came back in, the knees of his trousers muddy and wet. ‘It would start raining the moment I went out,’ he complained. ‘It’s perishing too. If the clouds clear, I think we’ll be in for a frost. By the way, when the bell goes, no one is to answer the door except me, and no one is to go in the morning room. It will become the gentlemen’s dressing room.’

‘Oh, but it’s where the Christmas tree is,’ said Ottilie.

‘We’ll make sure we don’t knock it over,’ said Daniel, ‘and we’ll put out the candles and we won’t interfere with the presents.’

‘You’d better not,’ said Ottilie, ‘or there will be dire consequences.’

‘No presents for peekers!’ said Rosie. ‘It was our family motto when we were little. Do you remember?’

‘Rosie opened all her presents one Christmas,’ said Ottilie. ‘She came down at dawn. And Mama made her sit in the attic practically all day in the dark.’

‘I’ve never been so cold in my life,’ said Rosie. ‘I’ve never been so miserable. Or frightened. Or lonely.’

‘Or contrite,’ said Mrs McCosh, defensively. ‘I’m sure it did you good. I let you out when you started screaming.’

‘I was only six! And you gave all my presents to Dr Barnardo’s.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t do it now,’ said Mrs McCosh.

‘My mother says that the most important thing one can learn from one’s parents is how not to be a parent,’ said Daniel.

‘Quite so,’ replied Mrs McCosh, without irony. ‘Mine were far too indulgent.’

It darkened outside, and the doorbell rang. Daniel ensured that there were no illicit observers, and ushered his muffled guests into the morning room.

This room was divided from the hallway not by a wall but by a large curtain. It served not simply as a morning room, but also as chapel, reception room and waiting room. Mrs McCosh considered it one of the great assets of the house. From the bench against the window one could observe passers-by, and peep surreptitiously in order to discern the identity of whoever was at the porch.

The house grew heavy with conspiracy, and light with anticipation. ‘I wonder what Daniel’s going to do,’ they repeated to each other, as they sat around the edge of the drawing room and sipped on the tea that Millicent served from the trolley. Sophie ate almost all the langues de chat without anyone noticing until it was too late. ‘Who’s having the last one?’ she cried, taking it herself, and exclaiming, ‘A handsome husband and ten thousand a year!’

‘Ten thousand,’ sighed Fairhead, ‘and handsome. One can only dream.’

Just then a roaring and whooping and stamping and drumming was set up outside in the hallway, and Mrs McCosh exclaimed, ‘Goodness gracious!’

‘Ooh,’ said Sophie, ‘cacophany and polydindination!’

The door burst open and three Khattak warriors hurled themselves into the room, leaping and whirling. Caractacus hurtled out of the room, between their legs. One was beating on a clay drum with a curved stick, and all were chanting something quite indecipherable in a strange high-pitched yodel. They wore ragged black beards, their equally ragged long hair was tied up in bobs, and their faces were of a golden hue. They wore chappalls on their feet, and, on their bodies, long loose shirts that, on closer
inspection, would turn out to be improvised from old sheets. Two warriors held long curved swords, and began to slash at each other ferociously and rhythmically.

Everyone in the drawing room was both appalled and fascinated. It was unclear as to who these prodigiously athletic savages were, and the two showed every semblance of truly desiring to slaughter each other. Their blood-curdling shrieks and the stamping of their feet on the bare floorboards made everything so much more alarming.

One of the combatants raised his sword above his head and slashed downwards. His opponent sidestepped and crouched down, cutting horizontally with a wide sweep that should have taken the other’s legs off at the knee, had not the latter skipped lightly into the air. When this manoeuvre was repeated, it began to dawn on the audience that they were watching, not a fight, but a dance.

A blade came down diagonally as if to strike at the base of a neck, but the target ducked and executed exactly the same manoeuvre in return. Then the two circled each other, glaring and snarling, until suddenly they both began to whirl like dervishes, two, three, four times, balanced on one foot and bobbing up and down like shuttles. Finally they faced each other once more, and circled, each with the point of a sword levelled at the tip of his opponent’s nose.

Suddenly they broke away from each other and advanced upon their audience, eyes rolling with aggression and insanity, chewing the ends of their beards, and feigning the intention of cutting the poor folk to pieces. Millicent squealed and ran from the room, but Cookie took up a brass candlestick to defend herself. Christabel and Ottilie looked uneasy, aware that this was all a wonderful hoax, but thoroughly disturbed by it nonetheless. Mr McCosh watched with amusement and appreciation, a cigar clamped between his lips, and Mrs McCosh enjoyed it all with a look of immense disapproval on her face. Rosie sat very still, with Esther on her lap, sucking her thumb. Sophie, pretending to be terrified, used the occasion as an excuse to cling more closely to her husband.

The dance ended with a frenzied ratatat-tatting on the clay
drum, and howls of ‘Allah o akbar!’ from all the protagonists. ‘Dadda’ said Esther, pointing.

‘Gracious me, I do believe it’s Archie and Fluke,’ said Christabel as the three men linked arms and bowed. ‘We haven’t seen Archie since the wedding!’

‘Feel free to applaud!’ said Daniel, and the assembly obediently did so, disconcerted though every member of it was.

‘Was that a Pathan dance?’ asked Sophie.

‘Pathans don’t dance,’ replied Archie, ‘they think it’s undignified. Chitralis like to dance. And sing.’

‘You had me quite fooled for a moment,’ said Sophie. ‘How did you do your faces?’

‘Wren’s polish, of course.’

‘Silly me,’ said Sophie. ‘I presume you got the beards from a goat?’

‘Archie, is that you?’ asked Christabel.

‘Yes, it’s me,’ replied Archie.

‘Introductions and fond reunions later!’ cried Daniel.

‘We are now going to do the Chitralis’ vulture dance,’ announced Archie. ‘Would anyone like to volunteer to be the corpse?’

‘Very much so, I would,’ declared Mr McCosh, ‘but it may take some time to lower myself to the floor.’

‘Do take my arm,’ said Archie, and so it was that Mr McCosh was lowered with much aplomb to the floor, where he lay on his back, sportingly puffing his cigar smoke towards the ceiling. Mrs McCosh was thoroughly mortified to witness her husband thus.

‘Would anyone like to play the drum?’ asked Archie. ‘Otherwise Fluke doesn’t get a chance to dance.’

‘I shall do it,’ said Mr McCosh gamely, ‘horizontal though I may be. Would someone take my cigar? Fairhead?’

The three dancers got down onto their haunches, and Mr McCosh began to beat the drum. ‘Slower!’ said Archie, and Mr McCosh obeyed. Fairhead held McCosh’s cigar at arm’s length. He had always disliked the things quite intensely. Privately, he considered them the turds of the Devil, and went for frequent strolls round the garden when Mr McCosh was smoking one.

The three men performed manoeuvres that can only be
described as macabre and grotesque. They hopped in a curious oblique skipping fashion towards the corpse, leapt back when it showed signs of life, flapped their arms in imitation of wings, pecked at each other and jostled each other out of the way. They gathered around the body and made a brilliant imitation of vultures ripping a hole in the belly and dragging out the intestines with long sideways wrenchings of the neck. The only thing they did not do was stand on the body itself.

At last Daniel fell back and announced, ‘I don’t think I can do any more of this hopping. My thighs are killing me.’

‘Let’s eat Daniel!’ cried Fluke, and the two remaining dancers switched their attention to him.

‘Can I get up now?’ asked Mr McCosh. ‘I think I need a stiff drink.’ Archie helped him to his feet, and he felt a sudden dizziness, from which he quickly recovered.

The three performers sat side by side on the sofa, sipping tea, still sweating and panting, and basking in the admiration of everyone except Mrs McCosh, who disapproved of exuberance, and had been disturbed by the very thought of vultures and corpses.

Hamilton McCosh was standing in the middle of the room with a sword in his hand, waving it speculatively. ‘I like the Pathan sword best,’ said Archie, noting Mr McCosh’s interest. ‘It’s like a long scalene triangle with a sort of ridge along the top. They’re unbelievably sharp.’

‘One misses rather a lot from never having been a soldier,’ said Mr McCosh.

‘One misses a lot of truly horrible things,’ replied Archie earnestly, ‘and it can make you quite unfit for normal life.’

‘Quite so, I’m sure. I bashed the Boche through the power of industry, but it might have been satisfying to spike one in person.’

‘I’m still hoping to kill one,’ declared Mrs McCosh. ‘When I think of poor Myrtle…and those dreadful bombers…quite beyond the pale.’

‘How long is your leave?’ Rosie asked Archie.

‘I’ve got three months, and then I’m back to the North-West Frontier.’

‘It’s most awfully nice to see you again,’ said Ottilie, who wondered sadly whether she would ever lose her passion for him. ‘I do wish you all still lived next door.’

‘I also wish we were still next door. Even so,
maman
is happy at Partridge Green, and it is lovely countryside down there. It’s splendid to go up on Chanctonbury Ring. You can see for miles. All the way to Blackdown.
Maman
likes it too. She takes binoculars and tries to look at France.’

‘She must have awfully strong legs.’

‘Family trait,’ said Archie.

‘Do you still speak French,
en famille
, the way you used to?’

‘Oh, absolutely. French is more intimate than English somehow. And it is far more effective when used on children. They actually obey if you say it in French. Not that I meet many children these days.’

Ottilie pursed her mouth sceptically. ‘Are you…?’ she began. ‘Is there…you know, anyone? Are we to expect any, um, good news at all? Is that why you’re back? Forgive me if I’m being nosy and impertinent, but we are old friends.’

‘What can you mean? Oh! I see! No, I’m not here to get married, or engaged, or whatever. The fact is that I can’t possibly get married when I have no income to speak of. I think one has a responsibility to support one’s wife properly, and to send one’s children to a decent school. Besides, I’ve spent most of my recent life in one of the most savage places on earth. I’m quite unfit for civilisation.’

‘Oh, but you’re not,’ said Ottilie. ‘Archie, you really ought to come back. I’m sure there’s lots you can do. You even speak French. You’re frightfully noble, and all that, but really you’re being a little bit old-fashioned. The war did change everything, you know. People married in droves during the war, without any money or forethought at all.’

‘It’s sweet of you to say so, but I am a lost cause, I’m sure of it. I’m only fit to instruct grown RAF officers on how to a do a Khattak sword dance and a Chitrali vulture dance, and lead tribesmen in battles against their own kind. And I’m too old. I’m a lot older than Daniel, you know.’

‘Oh, Archie, don’t. Of course I know how old you are. I always
looked up to you most tremendously. You seemed so…grown up and out of reach, somehow.’