Andrew Warburton

I was walking in the park, watching the ducks form a queue to dive into the lake, when a man jumped up from under the willow tree and called me by my name. I’d noticed him on my first round of the park — he’d been lying with one leg thrown lackadaisically over the other, the pages of a book concealing his face — and as ever with someone reading in my presence, I’d wanted to know who the book was by. When I bent over to look at the title and the author’s name, the sun shone brightly on the glossy cover and hid the words from my eyes. It was as if I was being deliberately tantalised. Standing in front of me now, I could hardly make out the man’s intent, or even if I knew him at all, because the sun, shining on his back, threw his face into shadow. It was only when I heard the light, musical tone of his voice that I realised it was Valancourt! I threw my arms around him and cupped his full, round buttocks; his hand, as if in response, encircled the back of my neck.

Valancourt was a member of a secret fellowship I happened to be a part of, which I won’t go into now for obvious reasons. He’d taken his name from the handsome Chevalier in the Gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho and it was a name that perfectly suited him, I thought. It gave him an air of mystery and courtliness, which, to some extent, he already possessed. As it turned out, he was in a mad dash.