I have been single handedly responsible for the massacre of six clay pigeons..
Oliver won with eighteen, Lucy and Mark tied with about fourteen each. If ever anything misfortunate happens to Mark, she could probably pretend to be Oliver’s father for the school competition.
Obviously it wasn’t supposed to be a competition, it was supposed to be a lesson. I think we are just that sort of family.
The clay shooting man was very impressed with Oliver, who is an ace shot and just made it look easy. We were all surprised by Lucy, who had never shot anything before, and who turned out to be really astonishingly good, lethal sports seem to be her talent.
He even said that I could probably learn to shoot if I relaxed and looked down the barrel of the gun with a bit more concentration. I was pleased about this, because it was really quite remarkably satisfying. I don’t know that I will bother to learn to shoot properly, though. I am not keen on the bit where the handle of the gun thumps backwards and smacks you in the jaw.
I was not very relaxed when we got there anyway. We had got up especially for the funeral, which was at eleven, and which was absolutely bursting with people. We had not expected this, but as it happened we had managed to arrive early enough for a parking space, and so sat smugly in our dry seats whilst everybody else came dripping in, panting from having had to dash across Ambleside in the rain.
It was as cheerful as funerals ever are, he was one of the first taxi drivers I knew. He was a ruthless old pirate, and I learned more from him than I can begin to tell you, not least a supply of dreadful jokes which have stood me in good stead ever since, and he was at the front of the church in that shocking box.
We stood with the other ruthless old pirates and mourned him together. The family had kindly invited everybody to join them for a post-funeral drink. I had tried in vain to change the shooting time, but it couldn’t be helped, and I regretted very much having to rush away, but we did.
It was raining hard.
The first thing about the shooting was the accompanying lunch, compulsorily purchased as the price for allowing the instructor to use the hotel grounds, and which had to be eaten first. I do not in the least mind an obligation to eat things, but they turned out not to be in any hurry to serve it, and by the time it arrived I was feeling indignantly middle class. They reassured us that it would not matter, and made the instructor a placatory cup of coffee, so that by the time we were finally filled with wine and smoked cheese and charred beef, he was not cross at all, and in fact everything progressed rather cheerily.
Mark and I scrambled out of funereal garb into something more appropriate for shooting in the rain, and we trekked across the sodden landscape to the shooting range.
We have often heard the shooting from the farm, which is not very far away, and wondered what it was, since it happens at all sorts of unsuitable times for it to to be agricultural, and were pleased to have the mystery solved. We stood at the top of a slope, and two machines fired round discs into the air from different angles, and the chap showed us how to hit them.
You have got to look down the barrel of the gun, that is the secret, and fire just in front of the flying disc to allow time for the disc to catch up with your bullet. I liked doing it very much, and would happily have stood there obliterating flying circles all afternoon, but Oliver had to be taken back to school and so we couldn’t.
We made our way home and talked about guns. Then Oliver had to change into his uniform, and the holiday was over.
The gypsies are here. We saw them on our way across for the first time this year. I have been watching hopefully for them for ages, because like the swifts, they are the summer, and they are late this year.
We knew they had begun to arrive as soon as we came over the brow of the hill, because there were police absolutely everywhere. Then beside the road there were rows of neat gypsy caravans and horses tethered all along the grassy verges. There was washing pegged hopefully below awnings, and old chaps squatting beside campfires, and dozens of the lightweight flying sulkie carts.
The next time we see Oliver, the dreadful Common Entrance will be over and he will be free as well.
Not long to go.
