Vintage Stuff

by Tom Sharpe

  *

  Later that afternoon, Slymne drove down the motorway towards Dover once again. Beside him the Major sat on an inflated inner tube and cursed the role of women in human affairs. ‘It was her idea to use that beastly thingamajig,’ he complained, ‘I couldn’t stop her. Had me at her mercy, and anyway, I couldn’t feel a thing. Can’t imagine why they call them French letters.’ Slymne kept his thoughts to himself. He was wondering what the Countess had had to say about the letters she hadn’t written.

  18

  He needn’t have worried. For the moment the Countess had other problems in mind. In fact the day had been fraught with problems. Mr Hodgson had refused to spend another night in a place where he was liable to be mugged every time he went to the loo and had left without paying his bill; Mr Rutherby had added to his wife’s and Mr Coombe’s little difficulties by threatening to commit a crime passionnel if he ever caught them together again, and Mr Coombe had told him in no uncertain terms that Mr Rutherby wouldn’t know what a crime fucking passionnel was until he’d been clamped in Mrs Rutherby for three bloody hours with people pulling his legs to get him out.

  But it had been the delegates who had given the most trouble. Dr Abnekov still maintained that he’d been the victim of a CIA conspiracy to silence him, while Professor Botwyk was equally adamant that a terrorist group had tried to assassinate him, and demanded a bodyguard from the US Embassy in Paris. Dr Grenoy had temporized. If the American delegate wanted protection he would have him flown by helicopter to the nearest military hospital but he could rest assured there would be no recurrence of the previous night’s dreadful events. The Château had been searched, the local gendarmerie alerted, all entrances were guarded and he had installed floodlights in the courtyard. If Professor Botwyk wished to leave the symposium he was perfectly welcome to, and Grenoy had hinted his absence wouldn’t be noticed. Botwyk had risen to the taunt and had insisted on staying with the proviso that he be given the use of a firearm. Dr Abnekov had demanded reciprocal rights, and had so alarmed Botwyk that he’d given way on the issue. ‘All the same, I’m going to hold the French government fully responsible if I get bumped off,’ he told Dr Grenoy with a lack of logic that confirmed the Cultural Attaché’s belief that Anglo-Saxons were incapable of rational and civilized thought. Having settled the problem temporarily he had other measures in consultation with the Countess. ‘If you refuse to leave,’ he told her, ‘at least see that you serve a dinner that will take their minds off this embarrassing incident. The finest wines and the very best food.’

  The Countess had obliged. By the time the delegates had gorged their way through a seven-course dinner, and had adjourned to discuss the future of the world, indigestion had been added to their other concerns. On the agenda the question was down as ‘Hunger in the Third World: A Multi-modular Approach’, and as usual there was dissension. In this case it lay in defining the Third World.

  Professor Manake of the University of Ghana objected to the term on the reasonable grounds that as far as he knew there was only one world. The Saudi delegate argued that his country’s ownership of more oil and practically more capital in Europe and America than any other nation put Arabia in the First World and everyone not conversant with the Koran nowhere. Dr Zukacs countered, in spite of threats from Dr Abnekov that he was playing into the hands of Zionist–Western imperialism, by making the Marxist-Leninist point that Saudi Arabia hadn’t emerged from the feudal age, and Sir Arnold Brymay, while privately agreeing, silently thanked God that no one had brought up the question of Ulster.

  But the main conflict came, as usual, in the differing interpretation by Dr Abnekov and Professor Botwyk. Dr Abnekov was particularly infuriated by Botwyk’s accusation that the Soviet Union was by definition an underdeveloped country because it couldn’t even feed itself and didn’t begin to meet consumer demand.

  ‘I demand a retraction of that insult to the achievements of the Socialist system,’ shouted Abnekov. ‘Who was the first into space? Who supports the liberationist movements against international capitalism? And what about the millions of proletarians who are suffering from malnutrition in the United States?’

  ‘So who has to buy our grain?’ yelled Botwyk. ‘And what do you give the starving millions in Africa and Asia? Guns and rockets and tanks. You ever tried eating a goddam rocket?’

  ‘When all peoples are freed—’

  ‘Like Afghanistan and Poland? And what about Czechoslovakia and Hungary? You call killing people liberating them?’

  ‘So Vietnam was freeing people? And how many murders are there in America every year? You don’t even know, there are so many.’

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s different. That’s freedom of choice,’ said Botwyk, who was against the uncontrolled sale of hand-guns but didn’t feel like saying so.

  Dr Grenoy tried to get the meeting back to the original topic. ‘I think we ought to approach the problem rationally,’ he pleaded, only to be asked by Professor Manake what rational role the French Foreign Legion were playing in Central Africa in solving anyone’s problems except those of French Presidents with a taste for diamonds.

  ‘I suppose the Foreign Legion absorbs some of the scum of Europe,’ said Sir Arnold, trying to support Dr Grenoy, ‘I remember once when I was in Tanganyika—’

  ‘Tanzania,’ said Professor Manake. ‘You British don’t own Africa any longer, in case it’s escaped your attention.’

  Dr Zukacs stuck his oar in. ‘Untrue. Financial imperialism and neo-colonialism are the new—’

  ‘Shut up, you damned Magyar,’ shouted Dr Abnekov, who could see the insult to Ghana coming, ‘not every country in Africa is a neo-colony. Some are highly progressive.’

  ‘Like Uganda, I suppose,’ and Botwyk. ‘And who gave support to that cannibal Idi Amin? He kept heads in his deep-freeze for a quick snack.’

  ‘Protein deficiency is rife in the Belgian Congo,’ said Sir Arnold.

  ‘Zaïre,’ said Professor Manake.

  Dr Grenoy tried again. ‘Let us examine the structuralism of economic distribution,’ he said firmly. ‘It is a functional fact that the underdeveloped nations of the world have much to contribute on a socio-cultural and spiritual basis to modern thinking. Lévi-Strauss has shown that in some parts of …’

  ‘Listen, bud,’ said Botwyk, who imagined Dr Grenoy was about to bring up the question of Israel, ‘I refuse to equate that bastard Khomeini with any spiritual basis. If you think holding innocent US citizens hostage is a Christian act …’

  In the tumult that followed this insult to the Muslim world the Saudi delegate accused both Botwyk and Lévi-Strauss of being Zionist and Pastor Laudenbach advocated an ecumenical approach to the Holocaust. For once Dr Abnekov said nothing. He was mourning the loss of his son who had been captured and skinned alive in Afghanistan and anyway he loathed Germans. Even Dr Grenoy joined the fray. ‘I wonder if the American delegate would tell us how many more Americans are going to prove their spiritual integrity by drinking orange juice spiked with cyanide in Guyana?’ he enquired.

  Only Sir Arnold looked happy. He had suddenly realized that Zaïre was not Eire and that the question of Ulster was still off the menu.

  *

  The Countess finished clearing up in the kitchen. She could still hear the raised voices, but she had long ago come to her own conclusions about the future of the world and knew that nice ideas about peace and plenty were not going to alter it. Her own future was more important to her and she had to decide what to do. The man who called himself Pringle was undoubtedly Glodstone. She had taken a good look at him when she had gone up to his room with his supper tray and had returned to her room to compare his drawn face with that in the school photograph Anthony had brought back. So why had he lied? And why had someone broken into the Château looking for her? She had already dismissed Grenoy’s suggestion that the mob in Vegas had caught up with her. They didn’t operate in that way. Not for a measly hundred grand. They were businessmen and would have used more
subtle means of getting their money back, like blackmail. Perhaps they’d merely sent a ‘frightener’ first, but if that were the case they’d employed a remarkably inept one. It didn’t make sense.

  Now, sitting at the big deal table eating her own dinner, she felt tired. Tired of pandering to men’s needs, tired of the fantasies of sex, success and greed, and of those other fantasies, the ideological ones those fools were arguing about now. All her life she had been an actress in other people’s dream theatres or, worse still, an usherette. Never herself, whatever her ‘self’ was. It was time to find out. She finished her meal and washed up, all the while wondering why human beings needed the sustenance of unreality. No other species she knew of did. Anyway, she was going to learn what Glodstone’s real purpose was.

  She climbed the stairs to his room and found him sitting on the bed draped in a sheet and looking bewildered and frightened. It was the fear that decided her tactics. ‘So what’s Glass-Eye Glodstone doing in these parts?’ she asked in her broadest American accent.

  Glodstone gaped at her. ‘Pringle,’ he said. ‘The name is Pringle.’

  ‘That’s not the way I read your Y-fronts. They’re labelled Glodstone. So’s your shirt. How come?’

  Glodstone fought for an excuse and failed. ‘I borrowed them from a friend,’ he muttered.

  ‘Along with the glass eye?’

  Glodstone clutched the sheet to him hurriedly. This woman knew far too much about him for safety. Her next remark confirmed it. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘there’s no use trying to fool me. Just tell me what you were doing sneaking around in the middle of the night and rescuing so-called people.’

  ‘I just happened to be passing.’

  ‘Passing what? Water? Don’t give me that crap. Some hoodlum breaks in here last night, beats up the clientele, dumps one of them in the river, and you just happen to be passing.’

  Glodstone gritted his dentures. Whoever this beastly woman was he had no intention of telling her the truth. ‘You can believe what you like but the fact remains …’

  ‘That you’re my son’s housemaster and at a guess I’d say he wasn’t far out when he said you were a psycho.’

  Glodstone tended to agree. He was feeling decidedly unbalanced. She couldn’t be the Countess. ‘I don’t believe it. Your son told you … It’s impossible. You’re not the Countess.’

  ‘OK, try me,’ said the Countess.

  ‘Try you?’ said Glodstone, hoping she didn’t mean what he thought. Clad only in a sheet he felt particularly vulnerable.

  ‘Like what you want me to tell you. Like he’s circumcised, got a cabbage allergy, had a boil on his neck last term and managed to get four O levels without your help. You tell me.’

  A wave of uncertain relief crept over Glodstone. Her language might not fit his idea of how countesses talked, but she seemed to know a great deal about Wanderby.

  ‘Isn’t there something else you want to tell me?’ he asked finally, to put her to the test about the letters.

  ‘Tell you? What the hell more do you want to know? That he hasn’t got goitre or something? Or if he’s been laid? The first you can see for yourself or Miss Universe 1914 can tell you. And the second is none of your fucking business. Or is it?’ She studied him with the eye of an expert in perversions. ‘You wouldn’t happen to be an asshole freak, would you?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Glodstone, stung by the insult.

  ‘No need to,’ said the Countess nastily. ‘It’s not my sphincter you’re spearing and that’s for sure. But if I find you’ve been sodomizing my son you’ll be leaving here without the wherewithal.’

  ‘Dear God,’ said Glodstone, crossing his legs frantically, ‘I can assure you the thought never entered my head. Absolutely not. There is nothing queer about me.’

  ‘Could have fooled me,’ said the Countess, relaxing slightly. ‘So what else is on your mind?’

  ‘Letters,’ said Glodstone.

  ‘Letters?’

  Glodstone shifted his eye away from her. This was the crunch point. If she didn’t know about the letters she couldn’t possibly be the Countess. On the other hand, with his wherewithal at stake he wasn’t going to beat about the bush. ‘The ones you wrote me,’ he said.

  ‘I write you letters about Anthony’s allergies and you make it all the way down here to discuss them? Come up with something better. I’m not buying that one.’

  But before Glodstone could think of something else to say, there was the sound of a shot, a scream, more shots, a babble of shouting voices, and the floodlights in the courtyard went out. Peregrine had struck again.

  *

  Unlike everyone else, Peregrine had spent an untroubled day. He had slept until noon, had lunched on baked beans and corned beef and had observed the comings and goings at the Château with interest. Now that he knew Glodstone was alive, he wasn’t worried. People were always getting captured in thrillers and it never made any real difference. In fact he couldn’t think of a book in which the hero got bumped off, except The Day of the Jackal and he wasn’t sure the Jackal had been a hero. But he had been really cunning and careful and had nearly got away with it. Peregrine made a mental note to be even more cunning and careful. No one was going to bump him off. Quite the reverse.

  And so through the long hot afternoon he watched the floodlights being installed and the police van being stationed on the road by the bridge and made his plans. Obviously he wouldn’t be able to go up the cliff as he’d wanted and he’d have to make sure the lightning conductor hadn’t been spotted as his route in. But the main thing would be to create a diversion and get everyone looking the wrong way. Then he’d have to find Glodstone and escape before they realized what had happened. He’d have to move quickly too and, knowing how useless Glodstone was at running cross-country and climbing hills, that presented a problem. The best thing would be to trap the swine in the Château so they couldn’t follow. But with the guards on the bridge … he’d have to lure them off it somehow. Peregrine put his mind to work and decided his strategy.

  As dusk fell over the valley, he moved off down the hillside and crawled into the bushes by the police van. Three gendarmes were standing about smoking and talking, gazing down at the river. That suited his purpose. He squirmed through the bushes until they were hidden by the van. Then he was across the road and had crawled between the wheels and was looking for the petrol tank. In the cab above him the radio crackled and one of the men came over and spoke. Peregrine watched the man’s feet and felt for his own revolver. But presently the fellow climbed down and the three gendarmes strolled up the ramp on to the bridge out of sight. Peregrine reached into the knapsack and took out a small Calor-gas stove and placed it beneath the tank. Before lighting it he checked again, but the men were too far away to hear and the noise of the water running past would cover the hiss of gas. Two seconds later the stove was burning and he was back across the road and hurrying through the bushes upstream. He had to be over the river before the van went up.

  He had swum across and had already climbed halfway up the hill before the Calor-gas stove made its presence felt. Having gently brought the petrol tank to the boil, it ignited the escaping vapour with a roar that exceeded Peregrine’s wildest expectations. It did more. As the tank blew, the stove beneath it exploded too, oil poured on to the road and burst into flames and the three gendarmes, one of whom had been on the point of examining a rear tyre to find the cause of the hiss which he suspected to be a faulty valve, were enveloped in a sheet of flame and hurled backwards into the river. Peregrine watched a ball of flame and smoke loom up into the sunset and hurried on. If anyone in the Château was watching that would give them something to think about, and take their minds off the lightning conductor on the northern tower. It had certainly taken the gendarmes’ minds off anything remotely connected with towers. Only vaguely thankful that they had not been incinerated, they were desperately trying to stay afloat in the rushing waters. But the Calor-gas stove hadn’t finished its
work of destruction. As the flames spread, a tyre burst and scattered more fragments of blazing material on to the bridge. A seat burnt surrealistically in the middle of the road and the radio crackled more incomprehensibly than ever.

  But these side-effects were of no interest to Peregrine. He had reached the tower and was swarming up the lightning conductor. At the top he paused, heaved himself on to the roof and headed for the skylight, revolver in hand. There was no one in sight and he dropped down into the empty corridor and crossed to the window. Below him the courtyard was empty and the smoke drifting over the river to the west seemed to have gone unnoticed. For a moment Peregrine was puzzled. It had never occurred to him that the gendarmes were really policemen. Anyone could dress up in a uniform and gangsters obviously wouldn’t bring in the law to protect them, but all the same he’d expected them to have been on the lookout and he’d gone to a lot of trouble to draw their attention away from the Château. But no one seemed in the least interested. Odd. Anyway, he was in the Château and if they were stupid enough not to be on their guard that was their business. His was to rescue Glodstone and this time he wasn’t going to mingle with people in passages and bedrooms. He’d strike from a different direction.

  He went down the turret to the cellar and searched the rooms again. Still there was no sign of Glodstone. But in the abandoned kitchen he could hear people arguing. He went to the dumb-waiter and listened but the voices were too many and too confused for him to hear what was being said and he was about to turn away when it occurred to him that he was in a perfect position to kill all the swine in one fell swoop. Swoop wasn’t the word he wanted, because coming up in a diminutive lift wasn’t swooping, but it would certainly take them by surprise if he appeared in the hatchway and opened fire. But that wouldn’t help Glodstone escape. Peregrine suddenly realized his mistake. They were holding Glodstone hostage. That was why they’d only had three guards on the bridge and had put floodlights on the terrace. They knew he’d return but because they’d got Glodstone there would be nothing he could do except give himself up. It explained everything he found so puzzling.