Invitation to Die

by Barbara Cleverly

  “Thetis. I’ve always called her Thetis,” the tramp returned the easy shot. His smile said that he’d understood the survival game was already under way, and the score was deuce on the warm-up alone.

  “We’ll cross here,” Digby announced. “Follow me, and mind you don’t get your feet wet.” He leapt with the playful agility of a Greek shepherd boy across the frothing stream that bordered Trumpington Street.

  Dickie gave a gracious nod of the head and murmured quietly, “And I’ll be keeping my powder dry, too, young Hermes!”

  They passed down alleyways, through gardens fragrant with lilac and orange blossom, across shady courts, twisting and turning but always heading west towards the river. Dickie had a mental mapping system to rival that of a pigeon, but he doubted he would ever manage to find his way back out of this medieval maze without a guide. He knew every nook and cranny of the public space of the city, but the colleges were unknown and unfriendly territory. Disconcerting. Was he entering a trap or scuttling into a convenient hole for safety?

  Dickie had learned always to be sure of a clear exit from any situation, but here there were no names, no directions, no numbers. If you had penetrated this far, it was assumed that you knew where you were, he guessed. From the clattering of copper pans and cutlery and the steam smelling strongly of frying onions issuing from an open window, he thought he’d located the kitchen, and heavenly voices raised in a snatch of “O Magnum Mysterium” gave away the position of the chapel. Ah well, if the worst occurred and he had to make a run for it, he could probably flee to the kitchen or the chapel and take his escape route from there.

  Why the hell had Dickie gone along with this pretence, walked willingly into this situation? Pretended to believe the rubbish Oily had fed him? “All lambs to meet in the marketplace. Slaughter to commence at twenty-two hundred hours.” What tosh! He ought to have made them come to him if they wanted him so badly. Lured them to the marketplace, at a time of his choosing. His own stamping ground. He could have fought back there, might even have engaged an ally to help him out. Solly was a useful pair of fists and always ready for a scrap. In any case, he hadn’t been deceived by any of Oily’s scare-mongering. The thought that Ratty and Herbert would give up a day of their busy lives to answer that summons was ridiculous. He’d met Ratty again during his trip up north to Yorkshire. Quite a swell these days, old Ratty. They’d held a brief conversation. Two strangers who’d had the misfortune to share an uncomfortable experience, that’s all they were. It had changed the shape of Dickie’s life, ruined it, he sometimes said, but Ratty had brushed it all away. He really didn’t seem to remember much of what had gone on. It was an irritating interlude for him, a hiccup in his career, and he wasn’t overjoyed at being reminded of it. There was no way that Ratty would be exposing himself to danger in the middle of Cambridge.

  And Herbert? It was unlikely that he would venture up to Cambridge, either, on only the strength of the anonymous letter. He was another who was doing a job he enjoyed and wanted nothing more to do with the past. He had never done anything out of respect for the group, Dickie had calculated early on. His loyalties had always lain firstly with any horse that may have appeared in his orbit and secondly to young Syd. If Oily was to be believed—and Dickie would check—Syd was hors de combat. Lying on his deathbed, face to the wall. No Syd, no group, would be Herbert’s reaction.

  Should Dickie have gone to the police with his suspicions? The thought of embarking on an explanation those muttonheads would be willing to listen to for more than a few seconds made him laugh. No, he was—as usual—on his own.

  Still, cornered here in a college as he was, if the worst came to the worst and he did have to make a run for it, leaving bodies behind, he couldn’t imagine who would step forward to challenge him here. There was no sign of bulldogs—those overstuffed bags of wind who paraded about, making life difficult for the students—inside the building. Genghis Khan could have ridden through with his slaughtering horde and the noise would have been ascribed to an outbreak of hijinks. In fact, the college premises appeared deserted. Everyone was dressing for dinner or doing a last bit of revision, he calculated, judging by the number of oak up signs he saw on doors.

  They climbed a winding stone staircase up to the topmost floor, and here Gisbourne paused in front of a heavy door that had clearly stood there on the same hinges since the Middle Ages. He banged heartily three times, lifted the latch and pushed the door open.

  Strangely, it was the cooking arrangements that Dickie took in first when he stepped into the room, so surprised was he to see them there, indoors, right alongside a large table laid for seven diners. It was a scene from any grand colonial picnic, and for a disturbing moment, Dickie was carried back to India. To service with a much-admired colonel. To a rare, peaceful summertime in Simla before the Great War. White dresses, tinkling laughter in the shade of the deodars and a phalanx of Indian servants cooking scented dishes on primus stoves. And a recently appointed, neat-waisted, suntanned young Captain Dunne fresh from his exploits in South Africa, dancing attendance on the Colonel and his family.

  Scything their way though a ten-year-thick growth of suppression, a pair of mischievous eyes swept in and recaptured his memory. A soft, inviting voice. “It’s a Persian dish. Do try some, Dick! I’d love to hear what you think of it.” And emotion had taken him by the throat and squeezed out words and thought, as it always did in her presence. Gargles and grunts and mindless braying formulae were all she’d ever heard from him.

  Dickie was aware that the same symptoms of speechless anxiety—down to the sweating palms—were unaccountably in possession of his body at this moment. Why the hell?

  Here, a million miles away in Cambridge, a single chef in full white regalia was officiating at a range of cooking hobs, piling cooked food into chafing dishes. A piece of equipment driven by electricity, Dickie could only suppose, since there was no smell of primus oil evident, just the mouthwatering scent of slightly scorched meat—was that lamb?—with an undercurrent of butter, garlic and herbs. That was lamb! And there was the aromatic trigger for his unwelcome memory.

  Shaken, but satisfied that he could at least account for his nervous spasm and therefore control it, Dickie achieved some professional calm by picking up his routine for survival. He swiftly assessed his surroundings. The lights of a range of tall windows, overlooking a courtyard of some kind, were conveniently open to air the room, but they stood many feet from the ground, and the drop below was long. The threat facing him would have to be of dire proportions before he exposed himself to such an exit three floors above ground level, where doubtless unyielding stone pavings would halt one’s descent. He was no Douglas Fairbanks to leap out onto a hoped-for network of ivy and drainpipes. There lay certain death. A screen in Spanish leather to one side concealed a small door—slightly ajar, he noted—leading off to a bedroom or study. A dead end. His sole escape route was through the door by which he’d entered.

  This now closed with a velvet thud behind him.

  The enemy had gathered some distance away to take his measure. In the background at the far end of the very large room stood a cluster of four dark figures formally clad in dinner jackets. At his entrance, they had all turned to look at him and had fallen silent. Digby went to join them. This was a calculatedly intimidating scene, Dickie thought, for any outsider lacking confidence. “The first one of these blighters to raise a lorgnette to his eye the better to quiz me, gets that eye poked out,” he promised himself to ginger up his spirits. But then, at his age, why risk it? Attack any of these gilded, whey-faced effetes and he’d find himself hauled up before the local magistrate, who might just happen to be the second cousin of the master of the college, and he’d be condemned to tramp the treadmill until he dropped dead. He almost turned and made for the door while he still could. And probably not the first guest to do that, he thought, if he’d read their game aright.

  The tallest figu
re detached itself from the group and came forward, hand outstretched. Dickie was almost relieved to recognise Rupert Rendlesham.

  “Noël! Is this you? Great Heavens! I believe it is! What a difference a shave makes! I see you have chosen to live up to the pseudonym I conferred on you and acquired a veneer of brilliantined elegance to chime with the insouciance and the ready wit. Gentlemen, may I present our guest who—for this evening—is going by the name of Noël Coward? Though he more regularly answers to ‘Charlie Chaplin,’ he tells me. Loquacity and wit in one corner, mute buffoonery in the other? I wonder what we may expect. Either way, we may be assured of an entertaining evening. Perhaps we may encourage him to embark on a debate with himself? Let me take your coat, Mr. Coward, and I’ll introduce you to the others. No footman tonight—we’re waiting on ourselves. You must forgive our informality.”

  The greatcoat was whisked away to an antlered hat stand by the door, and while pretending not to stare, Rupert was covertly checking to see what his guest was wearing below the all-encompassing garment. The secondhand dark grey serge funeral suit that Dickie had bought from a pawn shop was noted as incorrect, though acceptable, but Rendlesham tossed his head like a startled horse at the sight of the red, green and silver–striped tie.

  Oily had slipped it from his own neck without a second thought. “You can’t go anywhere respectable without a tie, man! Here, take mine. I’ve got six more like it at the hotel. Edith buys them for me by the armful. She loves the colours, and stripes are all the go this season, she tells me. She bought a bundle yesterday over the counter at Ede & Ravenscroft and picked out this one for me to wear. Just cross your fingers it’s not some college Tiddlywinks Club tie! That’s just the sort of thing that gets them riled up, apparently! A non-tiddlywinker making free with the club tie! Gor blimey! It’s another world! Unreal! These academic blokes are like orchids in a hothouse. They can only survive in a place like this, with their greedy roots sucking up expensive nutrients.”

  Dickie had agreed and accepted the tie.

  Rendlesham was staring at his neckwear with a mixture of amusement and disbelief. He gulped. He fought off a fit of the giggles. He turned to share the joke with his companions. Snorts and gasps followed and then an inexplicable relaxing of tension amongst the dark-suited gents. Dickie guessed that whatever they were seeking from him as a dinner guest, he’d unwittingly provided.

  The oldest man stepped forward. Time for introductions. Distinguished as their leader by his grey hair, which had the discreet gleam of polished pewter, and by his clear commanding voice, he introduced himself as Oliver Fanshawe. Fanshawe proceeded with slow solemnity to present him to the remaining three hosts. Hubert Sackville and Quintus Crewe, middle-aged, sharp of feature, cold of eye, were committed to memory. Dickie loathed them on sight but gave no sign of his antipathy. “And you have just met our most recent member: Digby Gisbourne. Like your good self, I understand, Digby is a native of our largest and what is considered by some to be our most splendid county, Yorkshire. By those who happen to be a connoisseur of cricket or puddings.” He turned a thin, placatory smile on Digby, who frowned.

  Ah! The first jibe, and it was a feeble one. A distancing shot that fell short of its target. Dickie had no sentimental feeling for his home county and no particular affinity with any other man who hailed from it.

  “Indeed? And how about you, Mr. Gisbourne? Do you proudly claim your northern heritage? Are you one of those fellows who embellishes his conversation with sentimental phrases of a ‘dark and tender and true is the North’ variety?” Dickie asked pleasantly.

  Digby Gisbourne took the remark in his stride. “Not at all. I was born in London, as a matter of fact, to a London mother of French Huguenot extraction. My father is, indeed, of Yorkshire stock—you are aware of the village of that name?—but I have spent little time north of the river Trent and feel no attachment to the place. Dark it is, I observe, but true and tender?” He shook his head. “Tennyson confuses his epithets, I fear . . . He should have used the words ‘fierce and fickle’ from the line above.”

  Fanshawe, restive, broke in. “Glad to hear it! There’s none like a Yorkshireman for boring a party with his mawkish attachment to his roots . . . unless it be a Scotsman! Take care, Mr. Coward, that you don’t provoke Rendlesham into waxing lyrical over Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, or Sackville into vowing his eternal fealty to Much Snoring, Norfolk. Society has pushed forward its horizons with the railway and the telephone. Matured. We are all citizens of the wide world these days. Though we are all—if only occasionally—tempted to regress into cosy collegiate loyalty by the wearing of a tie of doubtful taste and lurid colour. All of us here are members of this college. St. Jude’s,” Fanshawe explained. And added slyly: “You, Mr. Coward”—a finger whisked out in the direction of Dickie’s tie—“I note, are also a Cambridge, er . . . man?”

  More titters. Comments were passed behind hands which flicked over mouths and back again with the speed of a camera shutter.

  So! Hostility was at last unsheathed from the scabbard of courtesy. It slid out to the hiss of sneers, gleamed with the contempt of mocking stares. Dickie would have relished hitting them with a few such overwrought phrases, but he judged it too soon to be throwing down a challenge.

  At last, he’d understood. Bloody Edith! was his first thought. And stupid old Oily! Between you, you’ve made me look a first-rate dunderhead! The sly insinuations were surely indicating that he was sporting the colours of one of the women’s colleges. Hardly worn by the ladies since the Edwardian days of white blouses and cycling plus-fours, when it had been the fashion to copy men’s clothing styles, ties on women’s necks were a rare sight about town. He hadn’t recognised it. But his hosts, obsessed as they were with college protocol, clearly had. There were two colleges exclusively for women: Newnham and Girton. Which one? Could he remember the colours? Not with certainty. He swiftly calculated the odds, consulted his gut instinct and made his decision.

  He’d been wondering how to play this encounter. Quiet, unprovocative, subservient and annoyingly dull? Or—his preferred option—combative, using slay-and-spare-none verbal jousting? In a situation where he was outnumbered, outgunned and skirmishing on foreign territory, was that wise? No. It was asking for trouble. The only wise course open to him was to turn at once and make for the door and fresh air. But he’d learned a thing or two over the years from underdogs. Boer, Afridi tribesmen, Yorkshiremen. Clever sods, and they never backed down. They had the painful habit of jumping up and kicking you where it most hurt just when you thought you’d gotten the better of them. He’d stay and sing for his supper. And make this shower of shit join in the chorus.

  He turned a beaming smile on Fanshawe. “Man? Did I catch the whiff of a question there? Well—manly enough to have survived three wars, is your answer. In very active service on three continents, serving three monarchs. But—too tedious at a dinner party to indulge in comparing medals, battle scars.” After the slightest pause, he added, “Lives and reputations saved . . . I’m sure you agree. If manliness is a quality you insist on establishing in your guests before the aperitif is poured, may I suggest a simple way of checking my credentials? Select someone from your group—some Achilles, some Goliath—to escort me to the nearest tall tree—I believe I spotted a superb, smooth-boled chestnut down below in the court, and I’ll piss higher up it than your champion. I’ll even wager a quid on the outcome.”

  Dickie waited. He caught the look, half scandalised, half amused, saying, There! Didn’t I warn you? that passed from Rendlesham to Fanshawe.

  Digby Gisbourne filled the awkward pause by offering a tray of drinks to Dickie. “Will you have a glass of sherry, sir? Or would that have a debilitating effect on your urethra masculina? Spoil your aim, even? It’s the finest from the college’s Jerez bodega. Solera-aged in barrels a century old, I understand.” He was stifling a giggle, and his left eye twitched in what might have been a wink.


  “Hermes one minute, Ganymede the next, eh?” Dickie said jovially. “Watch it, young Digby! Remember the fate of an innocent shepherd boy snatched by Zeus to serve him his wine on Olympus! Have you checked the terms of your employment?” He shook his head and narrowed his eyes in warning. “I’d read the small print if I were you. No sherry, thank you. I’ll have a glass of Harrogate Spring Water, if you please. I see you have some.” He took a glass and, smiling, held it up and affected to admire its purity against a candle flame. “Aged for a million years in the limestone rocks of God’s own county.”

  He took a sip, then pointed to his tie. “It seems my tie is the focus of your attention. Deservedly so! It was carefully chosen. Gentlemen! Are you such prisoners of your ivory tower that you can be unaware? The town is celebrating the thirtieth anniversary this week of the founding of MFGCSS.” He paused for a moment to gather the blank looks before continuing. “The Male Friends of Girton College Suffragist Society. As a mark of our respect and support, the men of Cambridge have undertaken to sport the college colours for a week. Why? You have answered your own question by simply asking it! So that men like yourselves would take notice of a gross injustice! Might perhaps consider doing likewise. Might calculate that, half a century on from the inauguration of the first women’s college, the fact of being female deprives some of your brightest scholars of the degrees they have worked for and deserved.” He paused for breath and was prepared to roll on in the same vein with some relish since he saw that each face—with the exception of young Digby—was frozen in disbelief and distaste. At last, someone interrupted him.

  “Good Lord! Fetch him a soapbox! The fellow’s preaching at us!” Quintus Crewe exclaimed, applying a monocle to his eye socket to emphasise his disbelief. “Is he confessing himself to be a foot soldier in the monstrous regiment of women?”