by Tom Sharpe
‘Blott,’ said Lady Maud climbing into the back seat, ‘what do you know about telephone tapping?’
Blott smiled and started the car. ‘Easy,’ he said, ‘all you need is some wire and a pair of headphones.’
‘In that case stop at the first radio shop you come to and buy the necessary equipment.’
By the time they returned to Handyman Hall, Lady Maud had laid her plans.
So had Sir Giles. The first moment of elation at the prospect of a divorce had worn off and Sir Giles, weighing the matter up in his mind, had recognized some ugly possibilities. For one thing he did not relish the thought of being cross-examined about his private life by some eminent barrister. The newspapers, particularly one or two of the Sundays, would have a ball with Lady Maud’s description of their honeymoon. Worse still, he would be unable to issue writs for libel. The story could be verified by the hotel manager and while Sir Giles might well win the divorce case and retain the Hall he would certainly lose his public reputation. No, the matter would have to be handled in some less conspicuous manner. Sir Giles picked up a pencil and began to doodle.
The problem was a simple one. The divorce, if and when it came, must be on grounds of his own choosing. He must be free from any breath of scandal. It was too much to hope that Lady Maud would find a lover, but desperation might drive her to some act of folly. Sir Giles rather doubted it, and besides, her age, shape and general disposition made it seem unlikely. And then there was the Hall and the one hundred thousand pounds he had paid for it. He drew a cat and was just considering that there were more ways of making a profit from property than selling it or burning it to the ground when the shape of his drawing, an eight with ears and tail, put him in mind of something he had once seen from the air. A flyover, a spaghetti junction, a motorway.
A moment later he was unfolding an ordnance survey map and studying it with intense interest. Of course. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? The Cleene Gorge was the ideal route. It lay directly between Sheffingham and Knighton. And with motorways there came compulsory purchase orders and large sums paid in compensation. The perfect solution. All it needed was a word or two in the right ear. Sir Giles picked up the phone and dialled. By the time Lady Maud returned from Worford he was in excellent humour. Hoskins at the Worfordshire Planning Authority had been most helpful, but then Hoskins had always been helpful. It paid him to be and it certainly paid for a rather larger house than his salary would have led one to expect. Sir Giles smiled to himself. Influence was a wonderful thing.
‘I’m going down to London this afternoon,’ he told Lady Maud as they sat down to lunch. ‘One or two business things to fix up. I daresay I shall be tied up for a couple of days.’
‘I shouldn’t be at all surprised,’ said Lady Maud.
‘If you need me for anything, leave a message with my secretary.’
Lady Maud helped herself to cottage pie. She was in a good humour. She had no doubt whatsoever that Sir Giles indulged his taste for restrictive practices with someone in London. It might take time to find out the name of his mistress but she was prepared to wait.
‘Extraordinary woman, Lady Maud,’ Mr Turnbull said as he and Mr Ganglion sat in the bar of the Four Feathers in Worford.
‘Extraordinary family,’ Mr Ganglion agreed. ‘I don’t suppose you remember her grandmother, the old Countess. No, you wouldn’t. Before your time. I remember drawing up her will in … now when can it have been … must have been in March 1936. Let’s see, she died in June of that year so it must have been in March. Insisted on my inserting the fact that her son, Busby, was of partially royal parentage. I did point out that in that case he was not entitled to inherit but she was adamant. “Royal Blood,” she kept saying. In the end I got her to sign several copies of the will but it was only in the top one that any mention was made of the royal bastardy.’
‘Good Lord,’ said Mr Turnbull, ‘do you think there was anything in it?’
Mr Ganglion looked over the top of his glasses at him. ‘Between ourselves, I must admit it was not outside the bounds of possibility. The dates did match. Busby was born in 1905 and the Royal visit took place in ’04. Edward the Seventh had quite a reputation for that sort of thing.’
‘It certainly goes some way to explain Lady Maud’s looks,’ Mr Turnbull admitted. ‘And her arrogance, come to that.’
‘These things are best forgotten,’ said Mr Ganglion sadly. ‘What did she want to see you about?’
‘She’s seeking a divorce. I dissuaded her, at least temporarily. Seems that Lynchwood has a taste for flagellation.’
‘Extraordinary what some fellows like,’ said Mr Ganglion. ‘It’s not as though he went to a public school either. Most peculiar. Still, I should have thought Maud could have satisfied him if anyone could. She’s got a forearm like a navvy.’
‘I got the impression that she had rather overdone it,’ Mr Turnbull explained.
‘Splendid. Splendid.’
‘The main trouble seems to be non-consummation. She wants an heir before it’s too late.’
‘The perennial obsession of these old families. What did you advise? Artificial insemination?’
Mr Turnbull finished his drink. ‘Certainly not,’ he muttered. ‘Apparently she’s still a virgin.’
Mr Ganglion sniggered. ‘There was an old virgin of forty, whose habits were fearfully naughty. She owned a giraffe whose terrible laugh … or was it distaff? I forget now.’
They went into lunch.
Blott finished his lunch in the greenhouse at the end of the kitchen garden. Around him early geraniums and chrysanthemums, pink and red, matched the colour of his complexion. This was the inner sanctum of Blott’s world where he could sit surrounded by flowers whose beauty was proof to him that life was not entirely without meaning. Through the glass windows he could look down the kitchen garden at the lettuces, the peas and beans, the redcurrant bushes and the gooseberries of which he was so proud. And all around the old brick walls cut out the world he mistrusted. Blott emptied his thermos flask and stood up. Above his head he could see the telephone wires stretching from the house. He went outside and fetched a ladder and presently was busily engaged in attaching his wires to the line above. He was still there when Sir Giles left in the Bentley. Blott watched him pass without interest. He disliked Sir Giles intensely and it was one of the advantages of working in the kitchen garden that they seldom came into contact. He finished his work and fitted the headphones and bell. Then he went into the house. He found Lady Maud washing up in the kitchen.
‘It’s ready,’ he said, ‘we can test it.’
Lady Maud dried her hands. ‘What do I do?’
‘When the bell rings put the headphones on,’ Blott explained.
‘You go into the study and ring a number and I’ll listen,’ said Lady Maud. Blott went into the study and sat behind the desk. He picked up the phone and tried to think of someone to call. There wasn’t anyone he knew to call. Finally his eye fell on a number written in pencil on the pad in front of him. Beside it there were some doodles and a drawing of a cat. Blott dialled the number. It was rather a long one and began with 01 and he had to wait for some time for an answer.
‘Hullo, Felicia Forthby speaking,’ said a woman’s voice.
Blott tried to think of something to say. ‘This is Blott,’ he said finally.
‘Blott?’ said Mrs Forthby. ‘Do I know you?’
‘No,’ said Blott.
‘Is there anything I can do for you?’
‘No,’ said Blott.
There was an awkward silence and then Mrs Forthby spoke. ‘What do you want?’
Blott tried to think of something he wanted. ‘I want a ton of pig manure,’ he said.
‘You must have the wrong number.’
‘Yes,’ said Blott and put the phone down.
In the greenhouse Lady Maud was delighted with the experiment. ‘I’ll soon find out who’s beating him now,’ she thought and took the headphones off. She went bac
k to the house.
‘We shall take it in turns to monitor all telephone calls my husband makes,’ she told Blott. ‘I want to find out who he’s visiting in London. You must write down the name of anyone he talks to. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ said Blott and went back to the kitchen garden happily. In the kitchen Lady Maud finished washing up. She’d meant to ask Blott who he had been talking to. Never mind, it wasn’t important.
3
Sir Giles got back from London rather sooner than he had expected. Mrs Forthby’s period had put her in a foul mood and Sir Giles had enough on his plate without having to put up with the side-effects of Mrs Forthby’s menstrual tension. And besides, Mrs Forthby in the flesh was a different kettle of fish to Mrs Forthby in his fantasies. In the latter she had a multitude of perverse inclinations, which corresponded exactly with his own unfortunate requirements, while possessing a discretion that would have done credit to a Trappist nun. In the flesh she was disappointingly different. She seemed to think, and in Sir Giles’ opinion there could be no greater fault in a woman, that he loved her for herself alone. It was a phrase that sent a shudder through him. If he loved her at all, and it was only in her absence that his heart grew even approximately fonder, it was not for Mrs Forthby’s self. It was precisely because as far as he could make out she lacked any self that he was attracted to her in the first place.
Externally Mrs Forthby had all the attributes of desirable womanhood, rather too many for more fastidious tastes, and all confined within corsets, panties, suspender belts and bras that inflamed Sir Giles’ imagination and reminded him of the advertisements in women’s magazines on which his sexual immaturity had first cut its teeth. Internally Mrs Forthby was a void if her inconsequential conversation was anything to go by and it was this void that Sir Giles, ever hopeful of finding a lover with needs as depraved as his own, sought to fill. And here he had to admit that Mrs Forthby fell far short of his expectations. Broad-minded she might be, though he sometimes doubted that she had a mind, but she still lacked enthusiasm for the intricate contortions and strangleholds that constituted Sir Giles’ notions of foreplay. And besides she had an unfortunate habit of giggling at moments of his grossest concentration and of interjecting reminiscences of her Girl Guide training while tightening the granny knots which so affected him. Worst of all was her absent-mindedness (and here he had no quarrel with the term). She had been known to leave him trussed to the bed and gagged for several hours while she entertained friends to tea in the next room. It was at such moments of enforced contemplation that Sir Giles was most conscious of the discrepancies between his public and his private posture and hoped to hell the two wouldn’t be brought closer together by some damned woman looking for the lavatory. Not that he wouldn’t have welcomed some intervention into his fantasy world if only he could be certain that he wouldn’t be the laughing-stock of Westminster. After one such episode he had threatened to murder Mrs Forthby and had only been restrained by his inability to stand upright even after she had untied him.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ he shouted when she returned at one o’clock in the morning.
‘Covent Garden,’ Mrs Forthby said. ‘The Magic Flute. A divine performance.’
‘You might have told me. I’ve been lying here in agony for six hours.’
‘I thought you liked that,’ Mrs Forthby said. ‘I thought that’s what you wanted.’
‘Wanted?’ Sir Giles screamed. ‘Six hours? Nobody in his right mind wants to be trussed up like a spring chicken for six hours.’
‘No, dear,’ Mrs Forthby said agreeably. ‘It’s just that I forgot. Shall I get you your enema now?’
‘Certainly not,’ shouted Sir Giles, in whom some measure of self-respect had been induced by his confinement. ‘And don’t meddle with my leg.’
‘But it shouldn’t be there, dear. It looks unnatural.’
Sir Giles stared violently out of the corner of his right eye at his toes. ‘I know it shouldn’t be there,’ he yelled. ‘And it wouldn’t be if you hadn’t been so damned forgetful.’
Mrs Forthby had tidied up the straps and buckles and had made a pot of tea. ‘I’ll tie a knot in my handkerchief next time,’ she said tactlessly, propping Sir Giles up on some pillows so that he could drink his tea.
‘There won’t be a next time,’ he had snarled and had spent a sleepless night trying desperately to assume a less contorted posture. It had been an empty promise. There was always a next time. Mrs Forthby’s absent shape and her ready acceptance of his revolting foibles made good the lapses of her memory and Sir Giles returned to her flat whenever he was in London, each time with the fervent prayer that she wouldn’t leave him hooded and bound while she spent a month in the Bahamas.
But if Sir Giles had difficulties with Mrs Forthby there were remarkably few as far as the motorway was concerned. The thing was already on the drawing board.
‘It’s designated the Mid-Wales Motorway, the M101,’ he was told when he made discreet enquiries of the Ministry of the Environment. ‘It has been sent up for Ministerial approval. I believe there have been some doubts on conservation grounds. For God’s sake don’t quote me.’ Sir Giles put the phone down and considered his tactics. Ostensibly he would have to oppose the scheme if only to keep his seat as member for South Worfordshire but there was opposition and opposition. He invested heavily in Imperial Cement, who seemed likely to benefit from the demand for concrete. He had lunch with the Chairman of Imperial Motors, dinner with the Managing Director of Motorway Manufacturers Limited, drinks with the Secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Roadworkers, and he pointed out to the Chief Whip the need to do something to lower the rate of unemployment in his constituency.
In short he was the catalyst in the chemistry of progress. And with it all no money passed hands. Sir Giles was too old a dog for that. He passed information. What companies were on the way to making profits, what shares to buy, and what to sell, these were the tender of his influence. And to insure himself against future suspicions he made a speech at the annual dinner of the Countryside Conservation League in which he urged eternal vigilance against the depredations of the property speculator. He returned to Handyman Hall in time to be outraged by the news of the proposed motorway.
‘I shall demand an immediate Inquiry,’ he told Lady Maud when the requisition order arrived. He reached for the phone.
In the greenhouse Blott had his time cut out listening to Sir Giles’ telephone calls. He had no sooner settled down to deal with some aphids on the ornamental apple trees that grew against the wall than the bell rang. Blott dashed in and listened to General Burnett fulminating from the Grange about blackguards in Whitehall, red tape, green belts and blue-stockings, none of which he fully understood. He went back to his aphids when the phone rang again. This time it was Mr Bullett-Finch phoning to find out what Sir Giles intended to do about stopping the motorway.
‘It’s going to take half the garden,’ he said. ‘We have spent the last six years getting things shipshape and now for this to happen. It’s too much. It’s not as though Ivy’s nerves can stand it.’
Sir Giles sympathized unctuously. He was, he said, organizing a protest committee. There was bound to be an Inquiry. Mr Bullett-Finch could rest assured that no stone would be left unturned. Blott returned to the aphids puzzled. The English language still retained its power to baffle him, and Blott occasionally found himself trapped in some idiom. Shipshape? There was nothing vaguely in the shape of a ship about Mr Bullett-Finch’s garden. But then Blott had to admit that the English themselves remained a mystery to him. They paid people more when they were unemployed than when they had to work. They paid bricklayers more than teachers. They raised money for earthquake victims in Peru while old-age pensioners lived on a pittance. They refused Entry Permits to Australians and invited Russians to come and live in England. Finally they seemed to take particular pleasure in being shot at by the Irish. All in all they were a source of constant astonishment to him
and of reassurance. They were only happy when something dreadful happened to them, be it flood, fire, war or some appalling disaster, and Blott, whose early life had been a chapter of disasters, took comfort from the fact that he was living in a community that actually enjoyed misfortunes.
Born when, of whom, where, he had no idea. The date of his discovery in the Ladies’ Room in the Dresden railway station was as near as he could get to a birthday and since the lady cleaner had disclaimed any responsibility for his appearance there, although hard pressed by the authorities to do so, he had no idea who his mother was – let alone his father. He couldn’t even be sure his parents had been Germans. For all he and the authorities knew they might have been Jews, though even the Director of the Race Classification Bureau had had the illogical grace to admit that Jews did not make a habit of abandoning their offspring in railway cloakrooms. Still, the notion lent a further element of uncertainty to Blott’s adolescence in the Third Reich and he had got no help from his appearance. Dark, hook-nosed pure Aryans there doubtless were, but Blott, who had taken an obsessive interest in the question, found few who were happy to discuss their pedigree with him. Certainly no one was prepared to adopt him, and even the orphanage tended to push him into the background when there were visitors. As for the Hitler Youth … Blott preferred to forget his adolescence and even the memory of his arrival in England still filled him with uneasiness.
It had been a dark night and Blott, who had been put in to stiffen the resolve of the crew of an Italian bomber, had taken the opportunity to emigrate. Besides, he had a shrewd suspicion that his squadron leader had ordered him to volunteer as navigator to the Italians in the hope that he would not return. It seemed the only explanation for his choice and Blott, whose previous experience had been as a rear-gunner where his only contribution to the war effort had been to shoot down two Messerschmidt 109s that were supposed to be escorting his bomber squadron, had fulfilled his squadron leader’s expectations to the letter. Even the Italian airmen, pusillanimous to a man, had been surprised by Blott’s insistence that Margate was situated in the heart of Worcestershire. After a heated argument they dropped their bombs over Exmoor and headed back for the Pas de Calais across the Bristol Channel before running out of fuel over the mountains of North Wales. It was at this point that the Italians decided to bale out and were attempting to explain the urgency of the situation to Blott, whose knowledge of Italian was negligible, when they were saved the bother by the intervention of a mountain which, according to Blott’s bump of direction, should not have been there. In the ensuing holocaust Blott was the sole survivor and since he was discovered naked in the wreckage of an Italian bomber by a search party next morning it was naturally assumed that he must be Italian. The fact that he couldn’t speak a word of his native tongue deceived nobody, least of all the Major in charge of the prisoner-of-war camp to which Blott was sent, for the simple reason that he couldn’t speak Italian either and Blott was his first prisoner. It was only much later, with the arrival of some genuine Italian prisoners from North Africa, that doubts were cast on his nationality, but by that time Blott had established his bona fides by displaying no interest in the course of the war and by resolutely demonstrating a reluctance to escape that was authentically Italian. Besides, his claim to have been born the son of a shepherd in the Tyrol explained his lack of Italian.