“Have a seat,” Connie said, indicating a sofa that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a royal palace. It was more a mansion than a house. There was a library and a tennis court, endless well-kept lawns.
“Mind the cat,” Connie said hastily as Franklin narrowly missed sitting on what he had taken to be some kind of strange cushion but which turned out to be a dish-faced, long-haired white cat that glared malevolently at him. “Pedigree,” Patience muttered, as if that explained everything.
Patience, who clearly lacked Connie’s sunny nature, downed a schooner of sherry in one and said to Franklin, “If you were a musical instrument what musical instrument would you be, Franklin?” She seemed to regard the question as one of real interest. She had a kind of Germanic earnestness about her that made Franklin feel shallow.
All three sisters stared at him, waiting for an answer. “Violin,” he hazarded. To say “Cello” would have seemed sycophantic, given that it was Patience’s own instrument. A violin seemed a safe bet, like the cello it had strings, and it wasn’t quirky like a bassoon or a tuba or grandstanding like a piano, but Patience raised her eyebrows at his answer as if he’d just fulfilled her expectations by saying something banal.
Franklin was relieved when they moved into the dining room and settled at the (enormous) table. Mrs Kingshott carried in a platter and ceremoniously presented a poached salmon (one dull eye glared out at them) to Mr Kingshott. The salmon, apparently, fitted happily into Connie’s “almost vegetarian” philosophy. Mr Kingshott dissected the fish as if he were conducting a post-mortem. Franklin found himself wondering what Connie would taste like if he bit through her smooth skin and into the firm yet tender flesh beneath. The breast of an Aylesbury duck or a particularly good pork sausage perhaps. Franklin realized that the very fact that he had thoughts like this made him incredibly unsuitable to be in possession of the Kingshott’s middle child. He suspected that in her parent’s eyes (and in his own too if he was honest) he must seem feckless and totally unworthy of the gift of their daughter.
“What is it you actually do, Franklin?” Mr Kingshott asked suddenly, as if he’d been struggling with this quandary since the sherry. For a moment Franklin thought this might also be some kind of game (If you were a job what job would you be?). “For a living,” Mr Kingshott clarified when Franklin looked blank.
“Oh,” Franklin said. “I work in television.”
“Television?” Mr Kingshott repeated, his face contorted as if he was in some kind of exquisite pain. Previously Franklin had always felt a certain amount of pride when announcing this fact, it had taken him a long time to squirm his way up to where he was now. “On Green Acres,” he added.
“A farming programme?” Mr Kingshott looked incredulous, as well as he might. “You?”
“Oh, Daddy,” Mummy laughed. “It’s a soap opera, everyone knows that. Daddy likes Wagner,” she said to Franklin, as if that explained everything.
“Mummy’s an addict, Frankie,” Faith said.
“God,” Franklin said to Mrs Kingshott, “how awful for you.”
“Of Green Acres,” Connie said.
“Of course,” Franklin said.
He suddenly realized that Faith was studying his face across the centrepiece of yellow roses (“St Alban,” Mummy said) as if he were a fascinating new life form. He felt something rubbing against his calf and wondered if it was the cat again. He glanced down and was shocked to see a naked foot, the scarlet nails like drops of blood, arching and contracting as it stroked the denim of his jeans. The foot could only belong to Faith unless Patience, sitting at the other end of the table, possessed freakishly long legs. Perhaps he wouldn’t be such a happy otter if Connie’s sisters were in the pool with him, circling like sharks.
“So, Frankie,” Faith purred, “If you were a disease what disease would you be?”
There was a mutually declared break before the appearance of a raspberry mille-feuille that was waiting rather anxiously in the wings. “I really wasn’t in the mood for pastry-making,” Mummy said, frowning at the yellow roses as if they were about to do something unpredictable.
“Still on the Prozac, Mummy?” Patience said. (“Daddy fills all Mummy’s prescriptions,” Connie said.)
Connie leaned closer to Franklin. She smelt fresh and flowery. “Let’s go outside,” she said.
“Mummy’s pride and joy,” Connie said, rather brutally snapping off a delicate rose the colour of peaches and cream and holding it beneath Franklin’s nose. It was a lovely perfume, the inside of old wardrobes, China tea on a summer lawn, Connie’s skin. “Pretty Lady,” she said.
“You are,” Franklin affirmed.
“No, it’s the name of the rose,” Connie said. “I think we should get married.”
For some reason, Franklin’s dumbfounded silence was taken as an affirmative and the next thing he knew he was lost in a shrieking scrum of Kingshott women, only Mr Kingshott, more interested in the raspberry mille-feuille, remained aloof from the hysteria. Franklin wasn’t sure why they were shrieking. He wondered if it was horror. “Just like Jane Austen,” Connie said, fanning her flushed face with her hand.
Seeing that a romantic gesture was expected of him, Franklin drove back into town, put a thousand pounds on a handy little bay running in the last race at Beverley that came in at 10/1, strolled down the street with a winner’s easy gait and bought a diamond engagement ring from Alastair Tait, the jeweller. (“Any vices, Franklin?” Mr Kingshott had asked with mock amiability after the celebratory champagne was opened and the raspberry mille-feuille was finally consumed. “Oh, just the usual,” Franklin laughed.)
On his return, Mr Kingshott coerced Franklin into a game of tennis on the hard court at the back of the house. “Reach for it, boy!” Mr Kingshott yelled at him, lobbing an impossible ball high over Franklin’s head towards the back of the court. Despite his size, Mr Kingshott, it turned out later, was the doyen of the local tennis club, whereas Franklin hadn’t played since listlessly knocking a ball about at university.
Mr Kingshott took great pleasure in reporting back, over an elaborate afternoon tea that Mummy had prepared, that he had “soundly trounced” Franklin. “Well, Daddy wouldn’t play anything he couldn’t win,” Connie said later to Franklin as if that was the most reasonable thing in the world.
By the time they had eaten a supper of chicken sandwiches and drunk more champagne (they seemed to do nothing but eat and drink) Franklin couldn’t wait to retreat to the attic guest-room. Kingshott daughters were not allowed to share a bed with their beaux beneath the family roof. (“Daddy likes to pretend that we’re all virgins.”)
Franklin opened the door to the little room under the eaves and nearly had a heart attack. A figure was standing quite still at the open casement window, gazing out at the darkness. The figure turned around and to Franklin’s relief it was only Mrs Kingshott.