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which normally served, at best, a sandwich at the bar provided full-scale lunches on the bank holiday. The traditional holiday dish was eel pie, although Long Crendon was possibly the last place in Essex where it could be tasted. It was not what it had once been, since the eels were no longer caught in the Blackwater or Crouch, but imported frozen from Holland. Nevertheless, eel pie was not to be avoided on this occasion.
    Several tables had been reserved for the Cloates in the pleasant garden at the back of the Pied Bull. Some of the clan had moved away from the area but had made the effort to be present at the annual reunion. Of these I knew nothing at all, nor had I had contacts with the Cloates living in the village who were notorious for keeping to themselves. I knew only Dorothea and Dick, and their cousins the Broadbents.
    This was an exceptional occasion for the two families. Both Jane and Patricia would shortly be saying goodbye to the village for a while; Jane to face whatever Mrs Amos had in store for her; Patricia, having completed with distinction her course at the school for models, to join a party of them visiting Brazil, where they were to be photographed wearing the creations of a famous couturier against that pageant of water, the Iguazu Falls.
    I drove Dick down to the Pied Bull and we had a drink in the bar while awaiting the arrival of the other members of the party. Soon Dorothea came into sight with Emily and Bill Broadbent, all on horseback. Patricia had broken with custom by being dropped off at the pub by the Cambridge-educated son of a local landowner, who drove her over in his Porsche.
    Dick left me. I walked to the door of the bar to stand for a moment with the faint scent of eel pie from the kitchen in my nostrils, looking down on this gathering of the clan. At this level success made itself felt, and Bill Broadbent, a once handsome saloon-bar joker, prematurely aged by the good life his asset-stripping had provided, was surrounded by family toadies who had not done so well, a single gin and tonic held in every hand. These men were less prosperous than the average villager. Some were too old to be employed at the base, and some declined to do so, speaking of private means. Apart from Bill, only two had come on horseback. The Essex historian Stephen Maudsley, writing at the end of the last century, had mentioned the great-grandfathers of these men. ‘Scant heed was paid to law and order in these remote parts. Scarcely a score of years have passed since the notorious Cloates of Crendon’s End raided a nearby village which had given them some offence.’ This seemed like the end of the road.
    Jane and Patricia had moved out of the crowd and were walking together. They were fond of each other and, as had often been pointed out, however much Cloates might seem different from one another there were, as in this case, quite often resemblances that were not easy to define.
    Patricia, described by Mrs Amos, as possibly her most finished product, floated, drifted, seeming at times almost to be airborne, while Jane plodded at her side as if carrying a sack of potatoes on her shoulders. Patricia’s svelte body was clad to perfection. By comparison Jane appeared outlandish, almost tribal, as so many village girls were. In defiance of Dorothea’s protests she had applied bleach to her hair, following this with a bizarre attack with scissors. Patricia was pleasant and gracious to all, fluttering the tips of her fingers at anyone greeting her who could not easily be reached. Jane pretended not to have seen such salutations. Both girls were smiling and, studying them as they came closer, I understood that Patricia’s smile was part of Mrs Amos’s art—an asset, trained and accomplished to match all the other ingredients of her beauty. Jane’s smile, for all her lumpishness, was human—fallible, but sweet.
    Soon after this a project came up, taking me to the Far East, off and on, for nearly four years. I