'But what?'

'Let's face it, he's going to need to keep an eye out, isn't he?'

'What?'

'Come on . . . Girl's a little tart.'

Vivi had stood very still. The man's voice had lowered to a murmur, as if he had turned away to speak. 'Tony Warrington saw her on Tuesday. A drink for "old times", she told him. They used to walk out together, back when he lived in Windsor. Except her idea of old times was a bit too closely related to good times, if you know what I mean.'

'You're kidding me.'

'Not a week before the wedding. Tony said he hadn't even wanted to. Bad form and all that. But she was all over him like a rash.'

Vivi's ears had started to ring. She put out a hand to steady herself.

'Bloody hell'

'Exactly. But keep it to yourself, old boy. No point ruining the day. Still . . . you've got to feel rather sorry for poor old Fairley-Hulme.'

Four.

Douglas leant back in his chair, sucked ruminatively at the end of his ballpoint pen and gazed at the densely covered pages of plans in front of him. It had taken him several weeks, working long into the evening, but he was pretty sure he'd got them right.

He had based his ideas partially on a mixture of the ideals of the great social reformers, a kind of utilitarian blueprint for living, and something in America he'd read about a more communal way of doing things. It was pretty radical, admittedly, but he thought it might work out rather well. No, he corrected himself, he knew it would work out well. And it would change fundamentally the face of the estate.

Instead of the huge herd of Friesians the rules and regulations about which, since the introduction of the Common Agricultural Policy, his father had repeatedly complained could turn a sane man into a raving imbecile a hundred acres would be turned over to a self-supporting community. The participants could live in the derelict tied cottages, doing them up themselves with timber from the Mistley wood. There was a water source near there, along with old barns that could be used for small numbers of livestock. If they got in craftsmen, artisans, they could even start a studio down there, sell their pottery or whatever, perhaps giving back a small percentage of the profits in return.

Meanwhile the four fields on Page Hill, the ones currently turned over to sugarbeet, could be divided into smallholdings to allow local people to grow their own vegetables. There was a growing market for home-produced food, an increasing number of people who wanted to 'get back to nature'. The Fairley-Hulmes would charge a minimal rent, and take food as partial payment. It would be like a return to the tenanted farm, a return to the ancestral ways of the family but without the feudal attitude. And the scheme would be self-supporting. Perhaps even profitable. If it worked really well, the surplus money could be ploughed into some other project, perhaps an educational programme. Like one that taught the delinquents in town something productive, perhaps about land management.

The estate was too big for one man to manage. He had heard his father say so a million times, as if Douglas himself were not quite man enough to be included in this. There was the estate manager, of course, the head herdsman and the farmhands, the gamekeeper and the odd-job man, but ultimate responsibility for what went on belonged with Cyril Fairley-Hulme, a responsibility he had held now for almost forty years. And this responsibility no longer simply meant the running of the land, it meant complex calculations involving subsidies, which had meant more machinery, less diversification, more chemical weedkillers and fertilisers. All of which had left his father muttering unhappily that if he had to grub up any more hedgerows he might as well sell the animals, turn the estate into one of those American-style arable farms and be done with it, while his older men, those who had learnt to plough with horses, speculated that, forget animals, at this rate there'd be no need for humans.

The brief period of self-examination that had followed his meeting Athene had made Douglas realise he had never felt truly comfortable with the idea of inheriting the Dereward estate. It didn't feel earned somehow: in an age when nepotism and feudalism were dying a slow death, it didn't seem right that he should take on this self-aggrandising mantle, that he, not yet out of his twenties, should assume a right to the estate and responsibility for the lives of all who depended on it.

The first time he had broached this with his father, the older man had looked at him as if he were a Commie. He might even have used the word. And Douglas, who was astute enough to understand that his father was not likely to take seriously a plan that was half thought-out, had swallowed his words and gone off to oversee the disinfecting of the milking parlour.

But now he had a concrete set of proposals, which even his father would have to admit was likely to take the estate forward into the future, make it a model not just for agricultural excellence but for social change. He could follow in the tradition of those great reformers: Rowntree and Cadbury, those who had thought that making money was an insufficient aim unless it led to social and environmental betterment. He conjured up images of contented workers eating home-produced food and studying to better themselves instead of liquefying their weekly wages down at the White Hart. It was 1965. Things were changing fast, even if the inhabitants of Dere Hampton were unwilling to acknowledge it.

He placed the pages neatly together, laid them reverently in a card wallet and tucked it under his arm. He did his best to ignore the pile of letters to which he had yet to reply. He had spent much of the last month fending off complaints from ramblers and dog-walkers over the fact that he had erected a post-and-rail fence along the middle of the thirty-acre fields that led down to the wood to let the two sides for sheep grazing. (He had always fancied sheep. He still remembered fondly a youthful stay with a Cumbrian sheep farmer who counted his animals using an ancient and incomprehensible dialect: Yan, tan, tethera, pethera, pimp, sethera, lethera, hovera, covera, dik . . . That the villagers could still walk down the field had not pacified them: they didn't like, they said, being 'penned in'. Douglas had been tempted to retort that they were lucky to have access to it at all, and that if the estate wasn't made financially secure by such measures it would be sold off in parcels for development, like the once-grand Rampton estate four miles away. And see how they would like that.

But conscious that, as a Fairley-Hulme, he had at least to pay lip service to villagers' opinions, he had suggested they write their complaints in letter form and he would do his best to address them.

He glanced at his watch, then tapped his fingers on the side of the desk, a mixture of nervousness and excitement. His mother should be preparing lunch. When his father retreated into his office for his usual half-hour of 'paperwork' (often involving the brief closure of his eyes just for resting purposes, you understand), he would present his ideas. And perhaps make his own, more contemporary mark on the Dereward estate.

A short distance away, Douglas Fairley-Hulme's mother took off her gloves and hat, and shepherded the dogs into the boot room, noting from the clock in the hall that she had arrived home almost half an hour before lunch was due. Not that there was anything to organise; she had set off in the expectation that she might at least be invited in for coffee and prepared everything beforehand accordingly. But despite her having walked all that distance, and appearing at the doorway quite windblown every year, she forgot how March could surprise one and obviously in need of some refreshment, her daughter-in-law had declined to invite her in.

She had not got off to a good start with Athene. She failed to see how anyone could. The girl was a wearisome sort, always making impossible demands of Douglas but rarely wanting to do anything wifely and supportive in return. But Cyril had told her she should try a little harder to make friends. 'Have a coffee morning or something. Douglas says she gets bored. Easier for him if you two are friends.'

She had never particularly enjoyed the company of other women. Too much gossiping and worrying over things that didn't matter. One of the disadvantages of being the matriarch of the estate was that people somehow expected her to have conversations all the time, that she should chat about fripperies at charity mornings and fetes, when all she really wanted was to be at home with her garden. But it was rare that Cyril made a specific request of her, so she had set off dutifully on The two-mile cross-country walk that led to Philmore House, the large, Queen Anne-style residence that, on his marriage two years ago, Cyril had given to his only son.

Athene had been wearing her nightclothes, even though it was well past eleven. Not that she had seemed remotely concerned at having been caught in them. 'I'm awfully sorry,' she had said, not looking sorry at all. She had appeared momentarily surprised, and then flashed a bland, charming smile. 'I'm not receiving people today.' She had reached up to stifle a yawn, her seersucker robe revealing the flimsiest of nightdresses and, worse, a good length of pale decolletage underneath, even though any of the estate men might have been passing.

Douglas's mother had felt quite unbalanced by this extraordinary breach of decorum. 'I had thought we might have a cup of coffee together,' she said, forcing a smile. 'We've hardly seen you up at the house lately.'

Athene had glanced behind her, an air of distracted irritation hovering around her, as if her mother-in-law might have been followed by a phalanx of visitors, all demanding tea and conversation.

'Cyril was we were both wondering how you were.'

'You're terribly kind. I've just had rather a lot on.' Athene's smile wavered a bit when her mother-in-law did not budge. 'And today I'm feeling rather tired. Which is why I'm not really receiving anyone.'

'I thought we might have a little chat. About things-'

'Oh, I don't think so. But it's very kind of you to think of me.'

'There are a couple of things we'd like you to-' 'Lovely to see you. I'm sure we'll see you again soon.' And, after that brief exchange, the least demonstrative goodbye and not even a hint of an apology, Athene had closed the front door. And her mother-in-law, who normally liked to call a spade a spade, had been almost too stupefied to be offended.

In fact, despite being a woman of some certainty, she wasn't even quite sure how to describe this turn of events to her husband. What could she say in condemnation? That the girl had received her in her nightdress? Cyril might find that charming worse, he could start imagining things, and she knew where that might end. That Athene had declined to offer her coffee? Cyril would say simply that she should have given her some warning, telephoned before she left. It was one of the things that irritated her most, her husband's determination always to be fair. She decided to say nothing, but when Douglas arrived she took him to one side and told him straight: if his wife didn't want to dress herself with a little dignity, then she shouldn't answer the door. There was a family name to uphold. When he had looked at her with incomprehension, she had felt a sudden fearful protectiveness, combined with a distant annoyance that the boy was so like his father. You spent their entire youth warning them. Years, perhaps. But it made no difference when it came to girls like that.

Cyril Fairley-Hulme put down his napkin and glanced at the clock, as he did every day during the short minutes between finishing his meal and the moment at which his wife stood and asked if he'd like a cup of coffee before he headed into his study. Behind him, the radio gave out the weather forecast in measured tones, as it did at the end of every lunch, and all three observed a minute's silence to allow him to listen.

'Very nice,' Cyril said quietly. Then, as if making some long-pondered observation, 'You can't beat a good game pie.'

'Delicious. Thank you, Mother.' Douglas pulled the napkin from his lap and crumpled it into a ball on the table.

'It's one of Bessie's. I'll tell her you liked it. Do you have time for some coffee?' The dining table had been laid, as it always was, with a neat formality and good china despite the mundanity of the occasion. She lifted the plates, and walked, straight-backed, from the room.

Douglas watched her go, feeling the words leaden in his mouth, at odds with the racing feeling in his chest.

His father took some minutes meditatively tamping his pipe, then lighting it, his thin, tanned face creased into well-worn lines of concentration. Then he glanced at his son, as if surprised that during this part of the daily routine he hadn't left. 'Dennis is sowing the tubers this afternoon.'

'Yes,' said Douglas. 'I'm going to head up there when I leave.'

His father extinguished a shortened match and swore softly under his breath, glancing unconsciously at the door where his wife had exited. 'Want to make sure he gets the distances right. He set them too close together last year.'

'Yes, Father, you said. I'll talk to him about it.'

His father looked down at his pipe again. 'Waiting for harvest?' he said, lightly.

'What? Oh-' It was often difficult to recognise when his father was joking. 'Oh, no. Actually, Father, I wanted to talk to you about something.'

The pipe was lit. His father leant back, and exhaled a thin plume of smoke, his face briefly relaxing. 'Fire away,' he said genially.

Douglas looked at him, and then down, trying to remember where he'd put his folder. He stood, fetched it from the dresser, then began to pull out pages, laying them carefully on the table in front of his father.

'What's this?'

'What I wanted to talk to you about. Some ideas I've had. For the estate.'

Douglas rearranged two pages, then stood back, watching as his father leant forward to look a bit more closely.

'Ideas for the estate?'

'I've been thinking for ages. I mean, since the stuff with the CAP and you talking about giving up on the dairy side of things. We might look at doing things a bit differently.'

Cyril watched his son's stammering explanation impassively. Then he lowered his head towards the page. 'Pass me my glasses.'

Douglas followed his father's pointed finger, located and held out the spectacles. From the kitchen, he could hear his mother placing crockery on the tray, and the sound of cupboards opening and closing. He could hear the blood in his ears. He stuffed his hands into his pockets, then took them out again, fighting the urge to leap forward and point to separate paragraphs on the pages.

'There's a map under there,' he said, unable to contain himself any longer. 'I've colour-coded the fields according to usage.'

Time seemed to drag, then stall. Douglas, staring at his father's face, saw not even a flicker of emotion as he methodically scanned the pages. Outside, the dogs barked manically at some offender.

His father removed his glasses, and sat back slowly in his chair. His pipe had gone out and, after examining it, he laid it on the table beside him. 'This what they taught you at agricultural college, was it?'

'No,' said Douglas. 'Actually they're pretty well all my own ideas. I mean, I've been reading up and everything, about kibbutzes and you know all about Rowntree, of course, but-'

'Because, if so, we wasted every bloody penny sending you there.'

It came out with force, as if the words had been expelled from a gun, and Douglas jumped, as if they had physically impacted against him.

His father's face, as ever, revealed almost nothing. But there was a brightness behind his eyes, a faint pallor behind his ruddied complexion that suggested intense hidden anger.

They sat in silence, eyes locked.

'I thought you had sense. I thought we'd raised you with some sense of what was right and-'

'This is right.' Douglas heard his own voice lift in protest. 'It is right to give something back to people. It is right that everyone gets a share in the land.'

'Give it all away, shall I? Dish it out in parcels to anyone who wants it? Ask them to form a queue?'

'It would still be our land, Dad. It would just enable other people to work it. We don't even use it all properly.'

'You think people round here want to work the land? Have you actually asked any of them? The young people don't want to be ploughing and drilling. They don't want to be out in all weathers pulling weeds and spreading muck. They want to be in the cities, listening to popular music and all sorts. Do you know how long it took me to find enough hands just to get the hay in last year?'

'We'd find people. There are always people who need jobs.'

His father jabbed at the papers with disgust. 'This is not some social experiment. This is our blood, our sweat in this soil. I can't believe I've raised a son of mine, taught him everything I know about this estate, only to have him want to give it away. Not even sell it, mind. Give it away. You you're worse than a girl.'

He spat the words at his son, as if he were bilious. Douglas had rarely heard his father's voice raised against him, and discovered he was shaking. He tried to collect his thoughts against his father's concentrated anger and saw his mother, standing stationary in the doorway, tray in hand.

Without a word, his father stood up and stomped past her, ramming his hat on to his head as he went.

Douglas's mother placed the coffee on the table, and stared at her son, whose expression wore the same look of contained shock and misery as it had when he was eight and his father had beaten him for letting one of the dogs get into the calving shed. She fought the urge to comfort him, and instead asked cautiously what had happened.

For several minutes Douglas didn't answer, and she wondered whether he was trying to hold back tears. He gestured towards some papers on the table. 'I had some ideas for the estate.' He paused, then spoke in a strangled voice: 'Father didn't like them.'

'Shall I look?'

'Feel free.'

She sat down carefully in her husband's chair and scanned the pages. It took her several minutes to grasp what he was proposing, and she stared at the coloured map, slowly building a picture of her son's vision.

She thought of her husband, and his uncharacteristic burst of rage, and her initial sympathy for her son was replaced by her own swiftly increasing anger. Young people could be so thoughtless. They never considered what previous generations had had to go through. The world was becoming a more selfish place and, despite the bone-deep love she felt for her only son, she was now filled with fury at his lack of consideration that of his feckless, shameless wife too, and of their generation in general.

'I suggest you throw these on the fire,' she said, sweeping them into a pile.

'What?'

'Get rid of them. If you're lucky, your father will forget this conversation ever happened.'

Her son's face was a mask of frustration and incredulity. 'You're not even going to consider them?'

'I have considered them, Douglas, and they are . . . inappropriate.'

'I'm twenty-seven years old, Mother. I deserve to have a say in the running of the estate.'

'You deserve?' Her chest was tight, and her voice came in short bursts: 'That's all your generation cares about what you supposedly deserve. Your ideas are an insult to your father, and until you can comprehend that I suggest you and I end this conversation here.'

Douglas had both hands on the table now, was leaning down on straightened arms, as if he had been almost felled by her response. 'I can't believe you're both reacting like this.'

The last ounce of maternal sympathy she had felt for him evaporated. 'Douglas, sit down,' she commanded, and placed herself opposite him. She took a deep breath, trying to make her words measured. 'I'm going to tell you something about your father, young man. You have no idea what he has been through, keeping this estate together. You have no idea. When he inherited it, it was almost bankrupt. Wheat prices were the lowest in memory, the farm workers were heading off to the city because we couldn't afford to pay them, and we couldn't give the wretched milk away. He had to sell nearly all his family furniture, all the paintings except for the portraits, his own mother's family jewellery, the only reminder he had of her, I might add, just to keep it alive.'

She stared at her son, determined that he should understand the gravity of what she was telling him. 'And you'd be too young to remember this properly, but in the war the estate was requisitioned we even had German PoWs here. Did you know that? Your own father's brother killed in the air, and we had to take Germans' she spat the word 'just to keep the thing going. Dirty thieves they were, stealing food and all sorts. Even bits off the farm machinery.'

'They didn't steal anything. It was the Miller boys.'

She shook her head. 'Douglas, he has worked those fields day in and day out, rain, snow, sleet and hail, for his whole adult life. I have had him come home with hands raw from pulling weeds, and his back burnt blood red from working twelve hours in the sun. I remember nights when he's eaten and fallen asleep at the table. When I've woken him, he's gone off to fix the tenants' roofs, or sort out their drainage. This is the first time we've had enough money for him to relax a bit. The first time he's allowed himself to let other people help him. And now you, his hope, his pride, his heir, you tell him you want to give it away to a bunch of beatniks, or whatever they are.'

'It's not like that.' Douglas was blushing.

His mother had said her piece. She stood, and poured the coffee. She added the milk, then pushed a cup to her son. 'I'd like this to be the last time we discuss this,' she said, the heat gone from her voice. 'You're a young man with big ideas. But this estate is bigger than your ideas. And we haven't held it together for so long to let you unravel everything we've done. Because, Douglas, it's not even yours to give away. You are a trustee, a custodian. Your job is simply to act as a conduit for the changes necessary to keep it afloat.'

'But you said-'

'We said the estate would be yours. What we did not say, at any time, is that it should be diverted from its natural purpose. Which, first, is farming and, second, to provide a home and a living for successive generations of Fairley-Hulmes.'

There was a long silence. She took a long, restorative draught of her coffee. Her tone, when she spoke, was conciliatory: 'When you have children, you'll understand a little better.'

The radio crackled with interference as an aeroplane flew overhead. She turned in her chair, and adjusted the dial. Normal service was resumed.

Douglas, his head lowered, sat and stared into his cup.