Gentleman's Relish by Patrick Gale Page B

each other. Lara guessed Wolf had said something to his family during the spite-hungry tedium of the long, wet afternoon, which led to an official complaint. She was shocked to the core that he could do something so wicked and wondered if he was regretting it. Nobody liked a tell-tale.
    There was a lecture that night – a woman with an unfortunately high voice talking about Birds of the Cevennes – and only scant attention was paid. Lara stayed up for once and could sense a barely suppressed excitement among the adults. Sure enough, as soon as it was seen Wolf’s family had left the chalet, a kind of unofficial party broke out, with dancing and drinks, and she was hurried off to bed. Her parents returned in unusually high spirits much later than they normally did. Her mother was actually giggling and Lara enjoyed lying in her bed and eavesdropping through the curtain while they thought she slept.
    When he tried to join them the next day, the children ignored Wolf entirely, by common, unspoken consent. The first girl he addressed directly was the newly popular Eileen, who dared to look right through him and acted as though no one had spoken. At once this became the first of the day’s games and everyone followed suit. He was swiftly maddened by it, as they sensed he would be, and punched Chubby Eric hard on the shoulder. When even Chubby Eric heroically contrived to ignore his presence, he stalked off, shouting at them in his own language.
    The sun returned with full heat at last and they spent the day swimming and basking, enjoying the woods and water with none of their recent savagery.
    Wolf and his parents were asked to leave too. Perhaps because it involved a child their own children had been playing with, this news was kept back by most of the parents for much of the evening but inevitably it leaked out because there was nothing more interesting to discuss over supper.
    In a thrilling development like something out of John Buchan, Mr Johnson had cleared his name by returning with an old army friend who was now in the Dorset constabulary. He had him challenge and question Wolf and his family before the camp owners. Wolf had refused to admit he was lying but in his ever-wilder accusations had let slip something about his father’s cameras.
    Bringing a camera to the camp was as strictly against the rules as men without wives. It transpired Wolf’s father had not only been busy taking surreptitious snaps of them all but that his wife had been carrying a concealed cine camera in her cunningly modified knitting bag. All film was confiscated and exposed and, in a final, glorious flourish, the policeman friend had insisted on inspecting their passports before the family was escorted off the grounds.
    â€˜Germans after all,’ Lara’s mother said when she thought Lara wasn’t listening. ‘I told you I didn’t really care for her.’

THE DARK CUTTER
    He crossed two fields, opening the gates wide as he went, then clambered onto a hedge, cupped his hands on either side of his mouth and called.
    They each had a slightly different cattle call. His older brother produced a low, booming sound midway between a moo and a foghorn. Their father’s call had two notes, the second lower than the first, and usually had a trace of words to it, a sort of weary ‘come ‘long’. His own tended to emerge as a sort of falsely cheery Hey-oop! with a rising note at the end. He hated raising his voice or trying in any way to seem different but, try as he might to imitate the others, his call always came out the same way.
    Fog had come in off the sea soon after dawn and was drifting inland as a succession of clammycurtains. The steers were Charolais crosses so in these conditions became almost invisible, their buff and off-white flanks barely distinguishable from the pale granite of the hedges and pearly grey of the fog. There was a distant low-lying field where they spent the night