'You looked so sad.  The plot in which Guy Fawkes was taking part was an attempt to restore the Catholic succession to England, was it not?  I thought perhaps you were lamenting to yourself his lack of success in blowing up the Houses of Parliament.'

I smiled. 'No, Prince.  I was never a Catholic.'

'Ah.' He sighed and looked out of the window at the distant lights.  He smelled a little of smoke and some old-fashioned scent.  His eyes looked sunken and dark.  He seemed lost in his own thoughts. 'Ah, well.'

I hesitated, then said, 'You look a little low yourself, Prince.  Has it been a long day?'

'Most,' he said. 'Most long.' He stared out of the window.  He cleared his throat. 'Ah, dear Kate.'

'Yes, Suvinder?'

'About our telephone conversation this morning.'

I held up my hands as though to catch a basketball at chest height. 'Suvinder,' I said. 'It's all right.' I hoped I might settle the issue with just that gesture and those words, plus a look of friendly sympathy and understanding, but the Prince had obviously already decided he was going to have his say.  I hate it when people are so damn programmed.

'I hope you were not offended.'

'I was not, Prince.  As I said at the time, I was annoyed at being woken up, but the sentiments were most flattering.'

'They were,' he swallowed, 'sincere, but ill put.'

'The sincerity was by far the more obvious quality, Suvinder,' I said, and even surprised myself at the way the words came out.  The Prince looked pleased.  He gazed out the window again.  We both watched the few rising sparks.

I was thinking about how high up we were, about the crags and cliffs and the undulating hills between us and the town when he said, 'It is all so flat here, isn't it?'

I looked at him. 'Are you homesick, Suvinder?'

'Perhaps, a little.' He glanced at me. 'You have only been to Thulahn once, haven't you, Kate?'

'Just the once, and very briefly.'

'It was the rainy season then.  You did not see it at its best.  You should return.  It is very beautiful at this time of year.'

'I'm sure it is.  Maybe one day.'

He gave a small smile and said, 'It would please me greatly.'

'That's very kind, Suvinder.'

He bit his lip. 'Well, then, will you tell me why you were looking so despondent, dear Kate?'

I don't know whether I'm just naturally reticent or it's some business-inspired wariness to do with giving people a handle on my possible weaknesses, but normally I'm loath to share any back-story (as Hollywood would call it) stuff.  Anyway, I said, 'I suppose I always find fireworks kind of sad.  I mean, fun, too, but sad all the same.'

Suvinder looked surprised. 'Why is that?'

'I think it goes back to when I was a little girl.  We could never afford fireworks, and my mother didn't like them anyway; she was the kind of person who hid under the kitchen table when there was thunder.  The only fireworks I ever had of my own were a few sparklers one year.  And I managed to burn myself with one of those.  Still have the scar, see?' I showed him my left wrist.

'Oh dear,' he said. 'Sorry, where?'

'There.  I mean, I know, it's tiny, looks like a freckle or something, but, well.'

'To have no fireworks as a child, that is sad.'

I shook my head. 'It's not that, though.  What we used to do was, on November the sixth each year my pals and I would go round the town where I lived, collecting spent fireworks.  We' d dig the Roman candles up out of the ground and search for rockets in the woods and people's gardens.  We tramped all over the bits of waste ground looking for these bright tubes of cardboard.  They were always wet and soggy and the paper was just starting to unravel, and they smelled of dampness and ashes.  We used to stick them in a big pile in our gardens, as though they were fresh and unused.  The thing was to have more fireworks and bigger ones than your friends.  I found it helped to go further afield, to where the better-off people had their displays.'

'Oh.  So you were not just tidying them up?'

'I suppose we were doing that too, inadvertently, but really it was a kind of competition.'

'But why is that sad?'

I looked at his big, dark, melancholy face. 'Because there are few things more forlorn and useless than a damp, used firework, and when I look back it just seems so pathetic that we used to treasure the damn things.' I shrugged. 'That's all.'

The Prince was quiet for a while.  A few more rockets lit up the skies above Harrogate. 'I used to be frightened of fireworks,' he said. 'When I was smaller.'

'The noise?'

'Yes.  We have fireworks on many of our holy days and on the monarch's birthday.  My father would always insist that I let off the biggest and loudest of them.  It used to terrify me.  I would never sleep the night before.  My nurse would stop my ears with wax, but still when I set off the larger mortars the blast would all but knock me head over heels, and I would start to weep.  This displeased my father.'

I didn't say anything for a while.  We watched the tiny, silent sparks climbing, spreading, falling in the distance.

'Well, you're in charge now, Suvinder,' I told him. 'You can ban fireworks if you want.'

'Oh, no,' he said, and looked mildly shocked. 'I could never do such a thing.  No, no, they are traditional and, besides, I came to tolerate them.' He smiled hesitantly. 'I would even say that now I love them.'

I put my hand out and touched his arm. 'Good for you, Prince.'

He looked down at my hand, and seemed to be about to say something.  Then his secretary B. K. Bousande appeared at the door, clearing his throat.

Suvinder Dzung looked round, nodded, then smiled regretfully. 'I must go.  Good night, Kate.'

'Good night, Suvinder.'

I watched him pad quickly, silently away, then turned back to look out of the dark window, waiting for more of the tiny lights climbing above the town, but there were none.

CHAPTER FIVE

'You bitch.'

'You asked for it.'

'I was just trying to help.'

'So was I.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, you spoke so highly of this Dr Pegging I thought I'd give him something more to work on.  You can afford it.  Think of the poor man's fees.  And I think you've got a crush on him anyway.  Gee, I imagine calling up a complete stranger thinking they're your best friend is probably worth a whole year's extra treatment.'

'Ex-best friend.'

'Whatever.'

'Oh, Kate, don't be so horrible!'

'I'm sorry, Luce.  Bygones?'

'I suppose.

Word came through from Jebbet E. Dessous' people that the middle of the week was far too late to meet up; they wanted me there a.s.a.p.

So:  Uncle F's Lancia Aurelia to Leeds-Bradford, where some sort of fuck-up by British Regional Aeroflot — a fairly regular occurrence judging by the bitter comments of some of my fellow non-passengers — meant I had to hire a helicopter from a company in the airport; I phoned our corporate lawyers to let them know we'd be charging BA for the relevant amount on my company credit card.  I'm with the Prince on this one: I don't like helicopters either, or light aircraft for that matter, though in my case it's just because of the statistics.

Anyway, to Heathrow in a Bell Jetranger with a business-like pilot, who thankfully didn't indulge in any small-talk, then the tiny-windowed luxuriously upholstered cigar tube that is Concorde.  No free seats and I was sat next to a smug advertising account director who was himself invasively well upholstered and determined to make the most of both the free champagne and four hours of enforced intimacy.  I slipped my earphones on and turned up the Walkman.  Sheryl Crow at volume shut him up.