Part of him had wanted to run this little mental film through in front of Sergeant Prince. Just a very tiny part of him, but nonetheless he was proud of it. The majority, however, had been for silence and he was nothing if not a democracy. It was only suspicion after all. And it would not do for Cess Carter to think he had been talking to the police about him.
He resolved to put the whole matter out of his mind and concentrate on preventing Mickey from finding an opportunity to widen still further the gap between Maisie’s slacks and her sun-top. Unbidden, the boy’s couplet came to his mind.
The biggest tits I’ve ever seen
Belong to Maisie Uppadine.
It wasn’t bad, really. Not bad at all. Almost unconsciously his mind began to search for a pair of follow-up lines.
A large image was needed, something metaphysical.
… belong to Maisie Uppadine.
From Manchester to Marrakesh
That peaked and promontory flesh
Runs its pale coral into seas
Of sunken hopes and reveries
‘Please, sir! I can see it. I can see it! Is that it?’
Startled he awoke out of the creative fit. It was little Molly Jarvis, who loved him.
‘Yes, Molly,’ he said, looking out of the window at Averingerett. ‘That is it.’
Surprisingly he found he had no trouble at all in keeping an eye on Mickey Carter. On the contrary, the boy seemed to be constantly under his feet as they made their way down the long corridors and through the superbly proportioned rooms of the great house. There were no official guides, just a series of strategically-placed stewards whose function was to answer questions and ensure no one approached too near the treasures on display or trespassed into the apartments still occupied by Lord Trevigore and his large family. The stewards all knew Joe and greeted him familiarly.
‘Back again, Mr Askern? Thinking of buying the place, are you?’ was a typical example of their razor-edged wit.
Joe made little attempt to keep his party together as a party. The preparatory work they had done together in class ensured, in theory anyway, that the children had some familiarity with the house. They each had special assignments concerned with a variety of aspects of the visit, and the route round the building was well signposted and, more important, stewarded. So Joe merely answered the questions of those near to him, never at very great length. He had discovered very early in his visits that anything resembling a lecture not only alienated his own pupils but attracted a little crowd of casual tourists who stuck close to him for the next half-hour.
Even this might have been preferable to Mickey’s attentions.
‘Please, sir, are them books real?’ In the library.
‘Please, sir, what’s that silver worth?’ In the Banqueting Hall.
‘Please, sir, are them paintings or photos?’ In the Long Gallery.
He had a grubby little notebook (they all did, but Mickey’s was twice as grubby as anyone else’s) in which he noted Joe’s answers with a blunt stub of pencil.
It was a relief to pass via the greenhouse, where the Great Vine clung tenuously to life like an aged relative in an intensive-care unit, into the garden.
‘Please, sir.’
It was Maisie this time, so Joe gave her the full attentive-teacher bit.
‘Is this all the garden?’
She made a naturally graceful, all-inclusive gesture, obviously thinking of the patch of yellowing lawn over which her dad trundled his well-kept mower once a week.
Joe looked round at the level lawns, the fountained lake, the cascade, the carefully positioned groves, and to the east on the rising ground running up to the line of trees which marked the boundary, the great areas of parkland over which sheep grazed and across which the Trevigore hunt had for many centuries established man’s right to seigniorage of the animal kingdom.
‘Yes, Maisie,’ he said. ‘That’s the garden.’
He looked around at his flock, suddenly warning to them. This lot didn’t give a bugger for the Trevigores. They were going to run wild around this egocentric rearrangement of nature by some eighteenth-century chinless wonder. They were going to eat bloater-paste sandwiches in his rose-garden, carve their names in his arboretum, and probably piddle in his cascade. It was a kind of justice.
‘Right!’ he called. ‘Everyone here? All got your sandwiches? Now off you go and have a look round the gardens. Remember, nothing, practically nothing, you see is where it is by chance. Someone put it there. Enjoy your picnic, don’t make a mess. And back here at four-thirty sharp. Right here!’
He pointed dramatically at the naked wrestler beneath whose marble menaces they stood. The children set off merrily, happy to be out in the sunshine. Mickey came up to Joe and grinned insinuatingly.
‘Hey, sir,’ he said, jerking his head at the statue. ‘What a little one he’s got, eh?’
‘Go and eat your sandwiches, Carter,’ said Joe wearily.
He himself turned and made his way back towards the house hoping to find Jock Laidlaw and perhaps even pay a quick visit to the Book Room.
Today he was disappointed; seated behind the steward’s desk was a man he didn’t know.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I was looking for Jock, Mr Laidlaw. Is he about?’
‘No,’ said the man uninvitingly. ‘He’s sick.’
‘Oh dear. Nothing serious, I hope?’
‘No.’
Obviously there was little to be got out of this fellow. Not even a chat, which was a pity. He liked to be kept up to date on what was going on around the place. There’d been some activity he noticed up along the ridge to the east and he’d wondered if perhaps the Blue Grotto was finally being re-opened. A small complex of rather pretty caves, it had been designated as dangerous after a rock-fall the previous year and closed to the public since then.
‘Give him my regards if you see him. Mr Askern, tell him. Cheerio.’
He received no reply and was happy to get out into the sunshine again. It was now very warm and after five minutes he abandoned his plan of walking up to the Blue Grotto to see for himself and cast around for a shady spot in which to eat his pork pie and apple. He felt miserable. You’re getting old, Joe Askern, he thought. Old and pathetic.
What you want to solve all your problems is a rich luscious bird.
Mentally he checked through his availability list. Even including one or two who would not have got on a remote-possibility list two or three years earlier, there weren’t many. Really only two worth considering at all.
There was Maggie Cohen in the domestic science department. She was all right, Maggie. But he was reluctant to get too involved with another teacher. Most of his friends in the profession had married other teachers. There was something nasty about it. A husband’s profession ought to have a certain status, a certain mystique in the eyes of his wife. This was plainly impossible when they both did the same thing. Besides, his old mother in her pensioner’s flat in Chingford would start the third world war if he brought home a girl called Cohen. It had taken her half a lifetime fully to accept that his father came from north of Luton.
That left Alice Fletcher, just on the turn from bachelor girl to spinster, who had the flat beneath his. She was willing, there was no doubt about that. But she had the great disadvantage of being flat-chested. Hardly a contour in sight. Perhaps the daily apparition of Maisie had set up a block of some kind. But a man had to set some limits and thirty-six inches was his. Anything below was out.
Which left him with nothing but a pork pie and an apple. He fancied neither and instead went to sleep, dreaming uneasily of an old age of golf and the local Poetry Society.
The rest of the visit passed uneventfully. He scrutinized Maisie carefully for any sign that she had ‘had an experience’ as his mother used to call it, but she looked much the same as before.
What the hell do I expect? he wondered gloomily. A little red light to start winking in her navel? Christ, she’s over fifteen. Another few m
onths and it’ll all be legal anyway.
But he remembered the anxiety on her parents’ faces and resolved to have a chat with Maggie Cohen. Onions was officially in charge of sex education (which was like making General Booth landlord of a pub) but it was to Maggie the girls turned. She’d be able to say if Maisie was fully kitted out.
He spent a quiet evening, spoilt only by two encounters with Alice Fletcher. During the first, he refused her invitation to supper with her on the grounds that he’d just eaten. During the second, no words were spoken as they passed in the hall, Joe vainly trying to conceal the bag of fish and chips he had just purchased.
The following day dawned bright and warm and Joe forswore his original plan of lying in bed with the papers in favour of going down to the golf club. He had only been a member a few weeks, Vernon having finally egged him on to join on the grounds that he needed someone there he could beat. It was as good a place as any to have Sunday lunch.
He got changed and lingered in front of the locker-room wondering whether to wait till some other partner-less soul turned up or to strike out by himself. It would be a slow business on a Sunday, and lone players weren’t very popular.
‘Well by Christ, it’s Sir! How’s your head, eh? By God, you were rough!’
His heart sinking, Joe turned to look at Carter.
‘Good morning, Mr Carter.’
‘Cess, lad. Cess. You can’t mister a man as has put you to bed.’
‘Yes. Well. Thanks very much. It was kind …’
‘Not at all. Least we could do. Cyn saw you safely tucked up. The woman’s touch, though you weren’t in a state to appreciate it!’
Carter was wearing all the gear. Immaculate blue shirt with matching slacks. Brown and white calf shoes. A bright orange cap with a long peak. And there was something more than a hundred pounds’ worth of equipment on the trolley behind him.
Uneasily Joe shifted on his shoulders the second-hand bag containing six ancient clubs.
‘How’d you know where to take me?’ he asked.
‘Looked in your wallet. You didn’t notice? Now then, Lord Jim’ll be pleased about that. He prides himself on his touch. You waiting for someone?’
‘No. I just thought…’
‘Let’s join up then! That is if you don’t mind. Sir versus Cess! The match of the decade. Right?’
‘Well, all right.’
Carter was all smiling bonhomie as they walked to the first tee, but it didn’t dispel the feeling of unease, almost fear, Joe felt whenever he was near the man. He was also trying to piece together the uneven kaleidoscope of appearances that he presented. Layabout lecher, having it off in a pub car-park at lunch-time; working-class father, proud of his son’s toughness, letting his mother do the worrying; hard drinker, obviously respected (if that was the word) in the pub circles he moved in; and now, unexpectedly, golf club member, expensively equipped, expansively mannered.
Add to that the threat of physical violence Joe felt emanating from the man and the recent suspicion of criminal involvement, and you were left with a character to be wary of.
He seemed to know most of the people they met, exchanging greetings with an unforced joviality.
‘How long have you been a member Mr Car—Cess?’ asked Joe.
‘Me? Oh, a while. A while. Nice shot, lad!’ he said admiringly to the man who had just driven off the first tee by which they were waiting. ‘On you go, Sir. I’ll give you the honour.’
‘I’d prefer that you didn’t call me “Sir,”’ said Joe, quietly, hoping that his voice didn’t really have a tremor in it. ‘The name’s Joe.’
‘Joe, eh? Sir Joe! You and Lord Jim, you’d make a pair!’ He roared with laughter, then his manner changed and he touched Joe on the shoulder. ‘Right you are, Joe. Joe it shall be.’
He nodded as though bestowing an accolade.
‘Morning, Mr Askern,’ said a voice behind them.
‘Why, hello, Sergeant Prince,’ said Joe to the ludicrously white-haired man who had just come down from the clubhouse.
‘Morning, Sergeant,’ said Cess. ‘Come to check that we don’t drive too fast?’
‘Not much chance of that on a Sunday,’ said Prince evenly.‘I think you can go now, unless you hit like Nicklaus.’
Joe teed up and drove off, saying a little prayer of thanks as the ball went straight down the fairway.
‘Half a quid suit you?’ said Carter as he addressed the ball.
‘All right,’ said Joe, wishing almost immediately he hadn’t spoken as his opponent’s ball flew effortlessly down the fairway and came to rest a good sixty yards beyond his own.
This was the pattern of the game and soon Joe was a couple of holes down. It was very slow progress as there were a lot of people on the course and they had to wait at nearly every shot till those ahead were out of range.
‘My lad enjoyed his visit,’ said Carter during one such wait.
‘I’m glad.’
‘Made him respect learning a bit. If you know nowt, you are nowt, I tell him. He were very impressed by all you knew, Joe.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Very. You’ll have a few books about yon place, I expect?’
‘Averingerett? Yes. One or two. Why?’
Carter looked faintly embarrassed, an emotion which did not sit well on his brutally moulded features.
‘I just wondered if you’d mind lending them to our Mickey. He’s really interested. I’d see he took good care of them.’
Joe felt slightly touched. And very incredulous.
‘Well, if you think so … of course, I’d be pleased to.’
‘Thanks, Joe. I think they’re off the green now. We can play our seconds.’
As far as Joe was concerned they could have played their second shots much sooner. The chances of his reaching the green were very remote.
He addressed his ball. There was a thump behind him and looking round he saw a ball rolling down the fairway towards them. The tee behind was out of sight over a rise and you played your tee-shot at a marker-post.
‘They must have thought we’d have gone on by now,’ said Joe, puzzled to see his partner’s face so flushed.
‘Bloody pigs,’ said Cess between set teeth. ‘Bastards think they can do what they want.’
He strode up to the ball and trod on it violently, sinking it deep into the turf.
‘Let’s see ’em get out of that,’ he said, then with an odd glance at Joe, ‘Not a friend of yours, is he?’
Joe was glad to lose at the fourteenth and suggested that they shouldn’t bother to finish the round but walk in.
‘I’ll play a couple more,’ said Carter, glancing at his watch. ‘My Yorkshire pud’s still in the oven.’
‘How is Mrs Carter?’ asked Joe casually.
‘Grand. Champion. You must come and have a bite with us some time, Joe. She’d like that.’
With Cynthia to make up a four, wondered Joe as he trudged back to the club-house.
On an impulse after lunch he telephoned Maggie Cohen’s number but could get no reply. Reluctant to go back to his lonely flat and unable to face the traditional husband and wife Sunday afternoon foursome, he went for a walk by the river.
Christ, he thought gloomily, if I stop enjoying Sundays I’ll start looking forward to Mondays and end up like Cyril and Onions. At least Cyril’s got a wife and family. Perhaps he’s a different man at home. My trouble, he mused, peering into the muddied depths of the foam-pustuled waters, is that I’m the same man everywhere. Not a sign of life down there, dead, all dead of industry. Me too if I’m not careful. Someone somewhere’s got my share. Trevigore, Lord bloody Trevigore, that’s who it is, among others.
Trevigore’s got my share.
He must have spoken the words out loud for two young women with prams looked round startled, and Joe walked away, blushing guiltily.
I’ll be exhibiting myself next, he muttered, noting that even his mutter attracted the attention of a passing matron. Th
at’s how I’ll end up. Murky depths of a dead middle age.
But as he passed over the small wooden bridge which would lead him from the dangerous atmosphere of the municipal park, he glanced once more at the river and saw a bright silver shape rise momentarily to the surface, devour a fly, and then head downstream with a flick of its tail.
Filled with new hope (he was a great believer in signs) he resolved to go home and have it away with Alice Fletcher, even if it meant marrying her.
Fortunately perhaps, Alice was out, so he spent the evening marking hideously dull compositions, his only concession to the call of the senses being the continuation of the Maisie-poem.
He fell asleep in his chair trying to think of a rhyme and woke with a start at two o’clock in the morning, knocking the pile of exercise-books to the floor, and with an odd feeling that someone had been trying the door of his flat.
Chapter IV
As though in reaction against the depressions of Sunday, the week began very well. Onions was absent for a start.
‘Pregnant,’ asserted Vernon, looking significantly in the direction of Joe. ‘Or kidnapped. If we don’t pay ten thousand quid by the end of the week, they’ll send her back.’
‘She’s having a mouth transplant’, claimed Joe. ‘At Whipsnade. From a hippo.’
‘God, you’re all terrified of her, aren’t you?’ said Maggie Cohen. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t be so nasty.’
Maggie Cohen was a big happy girl who stopped just short of being jolly. At twenty-four she saw no reason in the world to be afraid of anyone, not even the Onions-Solstice juggernaut. Only seven years younger than Joe, she sometimes appeared to him like a new kind of human being. When this feeling came on, he usually invited her out for a large Chinese meal and attempted to establish some kind of fingerhold on her round, luscious breasts. An evening of such good-natured skirmishing reassured him once more of her essential humanity, as well as giving a little necessary airing to his mammary obsession.
A Fairly Dangerous Thing Page 3