by Tom Sharpe
Lady Maud looked at them all contemptuously. ‘I must say I think it is a poor show when we have to rely on Italians to look after our interests for us,’ she said.
The General shifted in his seat. ‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,’ he murmured.
‘I would,’ said Lady Maud. ‘Without him we would have all lost our homes.’
‘As it is Miss Percival’s lost hers already,’ said Colonel Chapman.
‘You can hardly blame Blott for that.’
Miss Percival took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes. ‘It was such a pretty cottage,’ she sighed.
‘The point I am trying to make,’ Lady Maud continued, ‘is that I think the best way we can demonstrate our gratitude and support for Blott is by proposing him as the candidate for South Worfordshire in the forthcoming by-election.’
The Committee stared at her in astonishment.
‘An Italian standing for South Worfordshire?’ said the General. ‘I hardly think …’
‘So I’ve noticed,’ said Lady Maud brusquely. ‘And Blott is not an Italian. He is a nationalized Englishman.’
‘Surely you mean naturalized,’ said Colonel Chapman. ‘Nationalized means state-controlled. I would have thought he was the exact opposite.’
‘I stand corrected,’ said Lady Maud magnanimously. ‘Then we are agreed that Blott should represent the party at the by-election?’
She looked round the table. Miss Percival was the first to agree. ‘I second the proposal,’ she murmured.
‘Motion,’ Lady Maud corrected her, ‘the motion. The proposal comes later. All those in favour.’
The General and Colonel Chapman raised their hands in surrender, and since the Save the Gorge Committee was the party in South Worfordshire Blott’s candidacy was ensured.
*
Lady Maud announced their decision to the press outside the Lodge. As the newsmen dispersed to their cars she climbed the ladder to the window in the Lodge.
‘Blott,’ she called through the broken panes, ‘I have something to tell you.’
Blott opened the window and leant out. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘I want you to prepare yourself for a shock,’ she told him. Blott looked at her uncertainly. He had been prepared for a shock for some time. The British army didn’t use .303 ammunition nowadays and PIATs had been scrapped years ago. It was a point he had overlooked at the time.
‘I have decided that you are to succeed Sir Giles,’ said Lady Maud gazing into his face.
Blott gaped at her. ‘Succeed Sir Giles? Gott Im Himmel,’ he muttered.
‘I very much doubt it,’ said Lady Maud.
‘You mean …’
‘Yes,’ said Lady Maud, ‘from now on you will be the master of Handyman Hall. You can come out now.’
‘But …’ Blott began.
‘If you’ll hand me the machine-gun and whatever else it was you used I’ll take them down with me and we’ll bury them in the pinetum.’
As they walked back up the drive with the PIAT and the Bren gun, Blott’s mind was in a state of confusion. ‘How did you know?’ he asked.
‘How did I know? I telephoned you of course as soon as I heard the firing,’ said Lady Maud with a smile. ‘I’m not as green as I’m cabbage-looking.’
‘Meine Liebling,’ said Blott and took what he could of her in his arms.
At Worford magistrates’ court Dundridge was charged with being party to a conspiracy to commit a breach of the peace, attempted murder, malicious damage to property, and obstruction of the police in the course of their duty.
It was the last charge that particularly infuriated him.
‘Obstruction?’ he shouted at the bench. ‘Obstruction? Who’s talking about obstruction?’
‘Remanded in custody for a week,’ said Colonel Chapman. Dundridge was still shouting abuse as he was dragged out to the Black Maria. In the cells he was interviewed by Mr Ganglion, who had been appointed by the court to conduct his defence.
‘I should plead guilty to all charges,’ he advised him.
‘Guilty? I haven’t done anything wrong. It’s all a pack of lies!’ Dundridge shouted.
‘I understand how you feel,’ Mr Ganglion said, ‘but I understand the police are considering additional charges.’
‘Additional charges? But they’ve charged me with everything under the sun already.’
‘There’s just that little business of blackmail to be attended to. Now I know you wouldn’t want those photographs to be produced in court. You could get life for that, you know.’
Dundridge stared at him despairingly. ‘For blackmail?’ he asked. ‘But I was the one being blackmailed.’
‘For what you were doing in those photographs.’
Dundridge considered the prospect and shook his head. Life for something that had been done to him. He had been blackmailed, obstructed, shot at and here he was being charged with these offences. If there was any conspiracy it was directed against him.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ he mumbled.
‘Just stick to “Guilty”,’ Mr Ganglion advised. ‘It will save a lot of time and the court will appreciate it.’
‘Time?’ said Dundridge. ‘How long do you think I’ll get?’
‘Difficult to say really. Seven or eight years I should imagine, but you’ll probably be out in five.’
He gathered up his papers and left the cell. As he walked back to his chambers he smiled to himself. It was always nice to combine business with pleasure. He found Lady Maud and Blott waiting for him to discuss the marriage settlement.
‘My fiancé has decided to change his name,’ Lady Maud announced. ‘From now on he wants to be known as Handyman. I want you to make the necessary arrangements.’
‘I see,’ said Mr Ganglion. ‘Well there shouldn’t be any difficulties. And what Christian name would he like?’
‘I think we’ll just stick to Blott. I’m used to it and all the men in the family have been Bs.’
‘True,’ said Mr Ganglion, with the private thought that some of the women had been too. ‘And when is the happy day?’
‘We are going to wait until after the election. I wouldn’t want it to be thought that I was trying to influence the outcome.’
Mr Ganglion went out to lunch with Mr Turnbull.
‘Amazing woman, Maud Lynchwood,’ he said as they walked across to the Handyman Arms. ‘I wouldn’t put anything past her. Marrying her damned gardener and putting him up for Parliament.’
They went into the bar.
‘What’ll you have?’ said Mr Turnbull.
‘I feel like a large whisky,’ said Mr Ganglion. ‘I know it’s prohibitively expensive but I need it.’
‘Have you heard, sir?’ said the barman. ‘There’s fivepence off a tot of whisky and tuppence off a pint of beer. Lady Maud’s instructions. Seems she can afford to be generous now.’
‘Good Lord,’ said Mr Turnbull, ‘you don’t think it has anything to do with this election, do you?’
But Mr Ganglion wasn’t listening. He was thinking how little things had changed since he was a boy. What was it his father had said? Something about Mr Gladstone being swept out of office on a tide of ale. And that was in ’74.
28
It was a white wedding. Lady Maud with her customary frankness had prevailed over the Vicar.
‘I can damned well prove it if you insist,’ she had told him when he had raised one or two minor objections but the Vicar had surrendered meekly. Wilfrid’s Castle Church was packed. Half the county was there as Lady Maud strode through the pinetum with Mrs Forthby as her bridesmaid. Blott, now Blott Handyman, MP, was waiting at the church in top-hat and tails. As the organist broke into ‘Rule, Britannia!’, which Blott had chosen, Lady Maud Lynchwood went down the aisle beside General Burnett, emerging half an hour later Lady Maud Handyman. They posed for photographs and then led the way down the path and across the footbridge to the Hall. The place was resplendent. Flags flew from the turrets; ther
e was a striped marquee on the lawn and the conservatory was a blaze of colour. Everything that Sir Giles’ fortune afforded had been provided. Champagne, caviar, smoked salmon, jellied eels for those that liked them, cucumber sandwiches, trifle. Mrs Forthby had seen to them all. Only the cake was missing. ‘I knew I had forgotten something,’ she wept but even that was found eventually in the pantry. It was a perfect replica of the Lodge.
‘It seems a pity to spoil it,’ said Blott as he and Maud stood poised with Busby Handyman’s old sword.
‘You should have thought of that before,’ Maud whispered in his ear. They cut the cake and the photographs were taken. Even Blott’s speech, authentically English in its inarticulacy, went down well. He thanked everyone for coming and Mrs Forthby for her catering and made everyone laugh and Lady Maud blush by saying that it wasn’t every man who had either the opportunity or the good fortune to be able to marry his mistress.
‘Extraordinary fellow,’ General Burnett told Mrs Forthby, who rather appealed to him, ‘got a multitude of talents. They say there’s talk of him becoming a Whip.’
Mrs Forthby shook her head. ‘I do hope not,’ she said. ‘It’s so degrading.’
Mr Ganglion and Mr Turnbull took a bottle of champagne into the garden.
‘They say that the occasion produces the man,’ said Mr Turnbull philosophically. ‘I must admit he’s turned out better than I ever expected. Talk about silk purses out of sows’ ears.’
‘My dear fellow, you’ve got it quite wrong,’ said Mr Ganglion. ‘It takes a sow’s ear to know a silk purse when she’s got one.’
‘What on earth do you mean by that?’
Mr Ganglion sat down on a wrought-iron bench. ‘I was just considering Sir Giles. Remarkable how conveniently he timed his death. Have you ever thought about that? I have. What do you suppose he was doing in gumboots in August? It hadn’t rained for weeks. Driest summer we’ve had for years and he dies with his gumboots on.’
‘You’re surely not suggesting …’
Mr Ganglion chuckled. ‘I’m not suggesting anything. Merely cogitating. These old families. They haven’t survived by relying on chance. They know their onions.’
‘You’re just being cynical,’ said Mr Turnbull.
‘Nonsense, I’m being realistic. They survive, my God, how they survive, and thank Heavens they do. Where would we be without them?’ His head nodded. Mr Ganglion fell asleep.
In bed that night the Handymans lay in one another’s arms, blissfully happy. Blott was himself at last, the possessor of a new past and a perfect present. There was no railway station waiting-room in Dresden, no orphanage, no youth, no uncertainties or doubts. Above all no motorway. He was an Englishman whose family had lived in the Gorge for five hundred years and if Blott had anything to do with it they would be living there still five hundred years hence. He had said as much in his maiden speech in the House on membership of the Common Market.
‘What do we need Europe for?’ he had asked. ‘Ah, but you say “Europe needs us”. And so she does. As an example, as a pole-star, as a haven. I speak from experience …’
It was a remarkable speech and too reminiscent of Churchill and the younger Pitt and of Burke to give the front bench much comfort.
‘We’ve got to shut him up,’ said the Prime Minister and Blott had been offered the Whip.
‘You’re not going to take it, are you?’ Lady Maud had asked anxiously.
‘Certainly not,’ said Blott. ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men …’
‘Oh darling,’ said Maud, ‘how wonderful you are.’
‘Which taken at its flood leads on to families.’
Lady Maud sighed with happiness. It was so good to be married to a man who had his priorities right.
In Ottertown Prison Dundridge began his sentence.
‘Behave yourself properly and you’ll be transferred to an open prison,’ the Governor told him. ‘With remission for good behaviour you should be out in nine months.’
‘I don’t want to go to an open prison,’ said Dundridge. ‘I like it here.’
And it was true. There was a logic about prison life that appealed to him. Everything was in its place and there were no unforeseen occurrences to upset him. Each day was exactly the same as the day before and each cell identical to its neighbour. Best of all, Dundridge had a number. It was what he had always wanted. He was 58295 and perfectly satisfied with it. Working in the prison library he felt safe. Nature played no part in prison life. Trees, woods, and all the gross aberrations of the landscape lay beyond the prison walls. Dundridge had no time for them. He was too busy cataloguing the prison library. He had discovered a far more numerate system than the Dewey Decimal.
It was called the Dundridge Digit.
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Copyright © Tom Sharpe 1975
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This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
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First published in 1975 by Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd
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