The entrance to the House of Lords is heavily protected, so that I am photographed and given a tag and passed through a metal detector, before being asked to sit and wait for his lordship, who is expecting me. Peers pass by, many of them former Members of Parliament, enclosed in an ineffable mist of self-regard. I think that, if you wanted to understand politics, you would need only to see the sort of people who are passing through here, eager to be important, eager to be recognised, eager to attach themselves to power and influence. The doors and screens and wallpaper and carpets are adorned with Augustus Pugin’s endless patterns of medieval Gothic motifs.
An usher calls me: Lord Huntingdon is here. He seems surprised to see me, as though he were expecting somebody more serious-looking, or generally older. Perhaps my suit is too new. His certainly isn’t: it is shiny with age, although this may be a desirable patina. The double-breasted jacket hangs very low; the vent at the back is under pressure from his comfortable backside, and gapes.
‘Ah Richard,’ he says, ‘how do you do and what jolly good fun to meet you. I am so glad you wrote.’
We shake hands. One of his eyes is a little glassy. It occurs to me that it might actually be glass. His face looks as though it has been lightly scorched on one side.
‘I was very fond of your father, you know. Shall we go through to the dining room? I can’t stand it: they have tried to become trendy and with-it, but they have mercifully left a few things on the menu that the old buffers can eat. Now it’s full of salad with goat’s cheese and raw tuna, and stuff like that. But I suppose we must move with the times.’
As we are shown to our table there is much
Yes, milord
and
This way, milord
and
Is the table suitable, milord?
We order; he opts for the salmon fishcakes and I, who have taken an oath never to eat salmon again, order pickled razor clam risotto. Huntingdon looks concerned.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, I think I will give the razor clams a go.’
‘They may give you a go.’
We laugh at his witticism.
‘I had a minor stroke last year, which accounts for my harlequin appearance. It’s not much fun getting old. I’m seventy-six. Lovely man, your father. Delightful. We were great muckers. Great muckers. You look like him, as a matter of fact. Now, what can I do to help? You said you are writing a thesis at Oxford.’
‘Well, thesis may be overstating it, but I am writing a paper on Crusader art. As of course you know, your ancestor was at Acre and other places during the Third Crusade. I just wondered if you had any historical records or recollections of your ancestor from that time.’
‘Look, the truth is we are not directly related to that Earl of Huntingdon in any way. The title was revived three times, but we do have some archives that go back a long way. It was mostly collected by my grandfather. Your father borrowed a document from the archive. When I gave it to him to show to experts, he managed to lose it. It wasn’t really his fault; I think we had had too much of the old magic mushroom the night before. I can’t say I blame him entirely. But there’s lots more that hasn’t been catalogued. My grandfather was very keen to establish that we were related to the first Earl, who was the grandson or son of the King of Scots, and he also bought all sorts of stuff about Robin Hood – there’s a whole network of Robin Hood loonies. He was sure he could discover a connection. A year ago we sent a few boxes to Oxford, and we have given some other things to a local museum. But there’s a lot more, and you could take a look at that. I would be grateful, as a matter of fact. It’s perfectly possible that my namesake helped himself to Crusader art, although the only things I believe we have from that time are the remains of some banners from Acre . . . oh, and some ghastly icons. I can’t stand icons. Do you like them? The women all look as though they have moustaches and the paintings are frightfully gloomy. Fat babies and depressed women, all in sepia, probably from the incense wafting about. Dreadful.’
The food arrives with a carafe of red wine.
‘House plonk,’ my host says, ‘but after the first few glasses it is just about drinkable. Right, where was I? Oh yes, the so-called archive. Come up to our place next weekend. Do you shoot?’
‘Yes, I do.’
I am relieved to be able to tell the truth; I recognise a test question from a long way off.
‘Jolly good. Got a gun?’
‘Not here. Mine’s in Scotland.’
Technically this gun is not mine. It was given to me on permanent loan by my aunt. It may even be the gun that my aunt’s husband, Sandy, used to blow his brains out. I always felt it was too delicate a question to ask her. I learned to shoot on the job, with clays and then with the grouse on the beaters’ days and on informal shoots.
‘Not a problem,’ Huntingdon says. ‘We have quite a lot. Too many. I’ll get my secretary to send you directions. And I will ask her to give you directions to the museum in Ashby too, just in case you want to drop in. My father’s coronation robes are on display there, by the way. My wife donated them. She didn’t ask me, as it happens. Come up for the weekend. Friday evening. How are the razor clams? My fishcakes are jolly good.’
I find myself succumbing to his charm. He has a kind of holy innocence, no doubt the product of years of privilege, but innocence all the same. A lifetime of secretaries and farm agents and nannies and – I see on Wikipedia – three wives has made him a sort of human cork, bobbing, unsinkable, on life’s waves. He tells me he is a ‘working hereditary’, meaning that he was kept on when the House of Lords was reformed. He is one of ninety hereditary peers who were elected because of their expertise or diligence. His expertise is in the working of the European Union: he loathes it. He sees a Britain happily free of the rest of Europe, giving full rein to its own glorious history, unique talents and generally special qualities. I wonder if this history encompasses Richard the Lionheart, who cared so little for England. In Huntingdon’s opinion, the European Union is an enervating force trying to stamp out individuality in favour of uniformity.
We start on another carafe of wine. It does get better after a few glasses. I am already drunk and amusing myself by thinking of implausible outrages committed by the Europeans, from banning mince pies, because they contain no minced meat, to refusing curved bananas, and on to demand that Latin names be displayed for the fish sold in fish and chip shops. All these are Euromyths, dreamed up by the tabloids.
Getting drunk with an elderly peer is working wonders for my state of mind.
I can see the time on one of the little monitors dotted around to keep the lords in touch with what is going on in the chamber. It’s four o’clock. When we leave the restaurant, a little unsteadily, Huntingdon tells me he must be in the chamber soon. He has to alert the world to some dastardly plan by the French to increase subsidies to their peasant farmers at our expense.
‘Goodbye, dear boy. It was wonderful to meet you. And we look forward to seeing you at the weekend.’
He shakes my hand warmly, and I watch him marching purposefully into battle, just like the first Earl of Huntingdon at Acre.
On the way out, I pass beneath the baleful presence of the triumphant Richard on his horse, his massive sword raised in triumph. My father thought it was a magnificent statue and brought me here to look at it when I was thirteen and about to be incarcerated at Pangbourne College, to have my small, sensitive testicles coated with shoe polish.
I must find my way to Oxford in a haze of bonhomie, which I know will wear off soon and become a headache. On the train I realise we have not spoken much about my father, although he has made approving noises, a bit like a seal barking. And for the first time in weeks, I haven’t thought of Noor for hours on end. Now, rapidly becoming remorseful, I struggle to bring my fuddled brain to bear on Noor, as though she needs my full attention and love. She hasn’t written to me. Surely she has access to email? I have emailed her, but the emails have failed. I try to imagine why she is not able to contact me. And I try rather forlornly to remember and re-create the happiness of our weeks together. I remember her body recoiling in the shadow of Kerak; she didn’t say it, but I think she was afraid of going on assignment.
Ed is excited by my invitation to a shoot. In the City, shooting was big. It betokened a devil-may-care attitude to money –
after all, you can’t take it with you
– and a manly attachment to what is elemental and deep-seated, and also a lack of squeamishness. This squeamishness, best demonstrated by the anti-hunting brigade, is the touchy-feely way of looking at the world, an attitude which is dragging the country down. How often I heard this kind of thing up on the moors as the grouse whistled towards the butts, by their deaths lending backbone to a decadent people who couldn’t punch the skin off a jar of custard or stamp on a cockroach.
For some reason I don’t fully understand, Ed wants me to look the part; he offers to lend me his Porsche. I protest unconvincingly. On my way north – all shooting is north – I head for Ashby de la Zouch, where a destroyed castle of the Hastings family, Lord Huntingdon’s family, lies. Here the third Earl of Huntingdon was jailer to Mary Queen of Scots.
I park the Porsche outside St Helen’s Church in Ashby and head for the Hastings Chapel. Here some scraps of Crusader flags are on display, but it is not clear which Crusade they belong to. Still, I find it moving that these flags were carried, a thousand years ago, to the Holy Land and brought back home; they may have survived Hattin or been flown at Acre. The particular Earl of Huntingdon who built this church was beheaded by Richard III. I recall Mark Rylance:
I will shortly send thy soul to heaven
.
The castle, ruined by Cromwell’s men, is a Huntingdon possession acquired much later; it had nothing to do with our Henry, Earl of Huntingdon. The museum is in a modest house. I speak to the curator; yes, she has some documents and parchments from the time of the Third Crusade. She takes me to a locked cupboard and brings them out. They are written in a florid, antique prose, which means that they are probably Victorian. A third letter, in Anglo-Norman French, appears to be from Henry of Huntingdon to his wife. He says that he has landed that day at Marseilles – ‘
Marselha
’ in the
langue d’oc
. It is dated 15 January 1193: Huntingdon assures his wife that he will now be home before the Feast of St John, Midsummer. He adds ‘
je n’en mantirai
’ – ‘trust me’ – a very contemporary promise.
The librarian makes scans of the letter, so that I can study it with my dictionary to hand. I offer a donation of £10, which she says is very generous. My bona fide is assured by the fact that I am staying with the family over the weekend.
Late in the afternoon I pause at the gates of Huntingdon’s house. Some way down the drive I can see the house. It’s pretty grand, a classical building, in the style of Palladio, as I have discovered on Wikipedia. It looks a bit like a bank, only more domestic. The drive is long and straight, bordered by oaks. Just before the house I cross a clear stream by a beautiful stone bridge. My professional opinion is that the stream almost certainly holds brown trout. Lord Huntingdon appears at the top level and sets off down the lichen-mottled steps. He walks stiffly, placing his feet carefully like a man in a dinghy. He is wearing a tweed jacket over a mustard-yellow, V-necked jumper.
‘Welcome. Did you have a good journey? I’ll take your luggage. Park your car round the side, under the magnolia. Tea is waiting. And I have put you in the best draws for tomorrow.’
I have no idea what a magnolia looks like, but there, beside a wing of the house, is a huge, glossy tree of broad leaves like dark green spatulas, which must be the magnolia. Huntingdon has made it up to the first level with my bag, and I pick it up and follow him up one more level of steps and into the house. The most recent Countess comes forward rather grudgingly.
‘This is my young friend Richard Cathar, darling. He is the son of my friend from Oxford, Alaric. I told you about him. And Richard, this is my wife Venetia.’
She must be thirty years younger than the earl. She is blonde and wiry with an unnatural tan. She is wearing a cashmere poncho and tight white jeans and short brown boots. It is the Argentine polo look, favoured by the young royals.
‘Sorry,’ she says, ‘I haven’t had time to change; just been for a ride. Tea is ready. And I believe that David is going to show you the archive. Did you say you had looked at the stuff we sent to Oxford?’
‘Yes, I have had a quick look through it.’
‘His father was a great chum of mine. Great chum.’
‘Yes, so you have said.’
She goes ahead to summon tea.
‘Venetia hates the shooting,’ says Huntingdon. ‘We’ve cut the season to only eight full days, plus a friends and family day. That’s tomorrow’s entertainment. Would you like a whisky? I tend to need one about this time of day.’
‘Not for me, thank you, sir.’
‘Call me David.’
He pours himself a double from a decanter.
Through the huge windows, I see that it is becoming darker, one of those late-winter days when the weak sun is doused by the mist and the exhalations of the damp countryside.
‘No, Venetia hates the shooting. She prefers polo and horses. She goes off to Argentina. We have an estancia there, not huge, where she breeds polo ponies.’