The in Crowd by Charlotte Vassell

Author:Charlotte Vassell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Published: 2024-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

33

Crawley Bottom House

‘I’m too hungover for this much gilt,’ Callie said, reacting badly to the house’s blinding golden plasterwork. There was a lot of it, and it was a sunny day. Plus she was still miffed that a volunteer had taken away her coffee cup on entry to this part of the house. She’d stolen another one of Caius’s T-shirts and was wearing it with the skirt she’d been wearing last night and her comfy trainers. She didn’t have any sunglasses though and that was awful. She took a sniff of Caius’s T-shirt because it smelled like him and it made something inside her flip.

‘Three more rooms, and then you can take your coffee back from the mean man,’ Caius said, looking at a painting on the wall of a nicely chubby woman holding a bundle of wheat. He’d caught Callie sniffing the T-shirt he’d lent her out of the corner of his eye and now he was worried that it hadn’t actually been clean. She didn’t pull an ‘ick’ face he hoped it was OK. He opened up his guidebook that as a member of the National Trust he received for free: ‘The art in the house reflects the source of income of the landowning Bertran family who had held these lands since the Norman conquest.’ It then had another paragraph on how they had enclosed Crawley Common. The Bertrans eventually ran out of men and the last Bertran, a homely-looking woman – they had just walked past her portrait – had married a merchant who had worked for the East India Company. Her descendants were fabulously rich before the last of them bought it at the Somme and the dynasty finally ended.

‘I should take some pictures. I feel like I’m in a bit of a creative rut at the moment,’ Callie said, staring at the wheat-wielding goddess in front of them.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, I suppose I’m bored.’

‘We need to find you a new muse.’

‘Yes, but I am a muse myself. I should be enough,’ Callie said, taking out her phone and going to photograph a picture of some classical woman with a boob out and a big urn under her arm when a volunteer came up to her.

‘No photography,’ she said, pointing to a cardboard sign sat on a marble-topped armoire adorned by naked little cupids.

‘Terribly sorry,’ Callie said.

‘Come on, let’s get you some postcards from the gift shop,’ Caius said, taking Callie’s hand and leading her out of the room and away from the still tutting volunteer. They glanced quickly at the remaining couple of rooms as they walked through them, then went to the gift shop where Caius realised that the postcards were £1.50 each whereas a book on Gainsborough was £12, so he bought Callie that instead. He hoped it was a romantic gesture. Once Callie was reunited with her coffee, they exited the house and another volunteer shooed them away from the gardens.

‘I’m afraid the gardens are closed for a wedding,’ said the volunteer.

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