‘We have to guard our reputation,’ the professor said, twinkling at her. ‘And we must keep our visitors not only content, but safe.’
‘There will be plenty who won’t be content if they can’t ski,’ said Liz, ruefully.
‘This weather is bad for the disposition,’ the professor said, gravely. ‘The low barometric pressure is enervating. And it is disappointing to spend money on a holiday that should be sunny and exhilarating merely to stay indoors playing bridge. Is that how you have been occupying yourself, Mrs. Morris?’
‘No. I don’t play – at least I used to, but I’ve carefully unlearned it, it’s so time-consuming,’ said Liz. ‘Once let it be known that you play and you’re for ever being asked to make a fourth. But Frau Hiller plays, and the Whittakers, and Sam Irwin. They have a four all under one roof.’
‘How convenient,’ said the professor. ‘It is at least an international game.’ He moved his chair a little, the better to survey the floor. ‘Very remarkable, is it not, this vogue for loud music? So unromantic.’
‘It’s primitive, like jungle drums, isn’t it?’ Liz agreed. ‘No one seems to bother about being subtle any more.’
‘What a pity,’ said the professor. ‘Tell me, that young woman clothed in purple, operating the music: is she really necessary?’
‘Someone has to change the records, I suppose,’ Liz answered. ‘And she’s decorative.’
‘Who’s decorative?’ asked Patrick. He had finished his dance with Barbara and wanted to talk to someone else.
‘Fiona, the disc-jockey,’ Liz told him.
‘Too emaciated,’ he pronounced, after a scrutiny.
As she presided like a priestess over her modern altar, Fiona at this moment was surrounded by several acolytes, young men in tight pants and polo sweaters who talked to her, looked through the pile of records by her side, and at intervals draped themselves round her shoulders. She seemed unmoved by these demonstrations, but sometimes left her machine unattended while she danced with one of her admirers, or sat at a table drinking with another.
Patrick surveyed the room.
‘Liz,’ he said, ‘there seems to be a friend of yours over by the door, trying to catch your eye. Somewhat of a giant.’
Liz peered through the smoky atmosphere and saw a large man with a round red face cheerfully waving at her.
‘It’s Jan van Hutter, from Rotterdam,’ she said, waving back. ‘He’s in my ski-class.’
Jan was now approaching, weaving his way among the tables with huge strides. He had very bright blue eyes and wore a large smile.
‘Elizabeth! My favourite lady!’ he exclaimed, and kissed her hand.
‘Do sit down,’ said Patrick, making room for him. Liz saw the smirk on his face at the greeting Jan had given her and she kicked him hard under the table; her slippers were too soft to hurt his shins, unfortunately.
‘Are you sure I do not intrude?’ Jan asked, sitting down all the same.
‘Of course not, Jan. I’m delighted to see you,’ Liz said. ‘Meet my friends. Sue you already know, I think.’
‘Ah yes.’ Jan beamed at Sue. ‘We have met at Ferdy’s, more than once.’
Liz continued with the introductions, leaving Patrick until last, to set him down if that were possible. He capped this act of hers by summoning the waiter and commanding further drinks.
‘Elizabeth, you did not come to ski-school today,’ Jan reproached her.
‘No, Jan. I couldn’t face another struggle in the blizzard,’ she said. ‘I took the day off.’
‘You missed my triumph,’ Jan told her solemnly. ‘I had a wonderful morning. I have ridden to the top of the Schneider- horn without falling from the drag-lift, and I have skied down the White Run with only ten tumbles. But if you had not deserted me, Elizabeth, I would have done better still.’
‘I do admire your dedication,’ Liz said. Jan took so many bad falls each day that she constantly expected him to break one of his massive limbs, but all he ever did was laugh hugely, rise from the snow, shake himself like an enormous bear and lumber unsteadily off again.
‘Elizabeth and I had an adventure on the drag-lift yesterday,’ he told the company.
‘We don’t make a very good pair,’ Liz said. ‘Jan’s so tall that he tilts the hook alarmingly.’
‘That is true,’ said Jan, sadly. ‘You need a partner of the same size. Riding with the small Elizabeth, I was fixed on by only one boottock.’ The Dutchman’s excellent English contained some highly original examples of pronunciation.
Sue thought Liz had held the stage for long enough.
‘Never mind, Jan,’ she said. ‘I’m making rapid progress on the nursery slopes and I’ll ride with you when I’m in a higher class. There’s more of me than there is of Liz.’
‘Good, good,’ said Jan, smiling. ‘And will you dance with me now?’
Sue’s feet had been tapping beneath the table to the rhythm of the music all the evening. She sprang up, delighted, at his invitation. They made a handsome couple on the floor.
‘Come on, Liz,’ said Patrick. ‘You’ll excuse us, Max.’ He took Liz by the hand and led her past the crowded tables, on to the dance floor.
‘I like your professor,’ Liz said. ‘How did you meet?’
‘We’ve corresponded for years,’ said Patrick. ‘He contributes to various journals I’m interested in. He’s a great authority on Elizabethan drama – he spent some time in Cambridge as a young man just before the war. We met first at a seminar in Stockholm, two years ago.’
‘What was your paper about?’ Liz asked.
‘Loosely speaking, guilt in Shakespeare’s works, but I probed a bit,’ said Patrick.
‘I should think that’s an inexhaustible subject,’ said Liz. ‘Lady Macbeth’s insomnia, and so forth. And the ghosts.’
‘Yes. Though they are often warnings, too,’ said Patrick. ‘Like Hamlet’s father. Signs and portents are quite fun to think about.’
‘You mean storms and things? Shipwrecks? Viola and Sebastian set adrift?’
‘I wasn’t thinking so much of the storms that trigger the plot as those which indicate the humour of the hour,’ Patrick said. ‘Like when Caesar was murdered, for example, and in Lear.’
‘And in Macbeth, too.’
‘Yes, but Macbeth’s a bit of a muddle,’ Patrick said.
‘I like it all the same,’ said Liz.
‘Oh, so do I. I like them all,’ said Patrick. ‘Each in its way.’ He mused. ‘Funny Irwin should be one of your little band.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean? I don’t see the connection.’
‘Don’t you remember his Mercutio? It was years ago. Perhaps it was when you were in Canada.’
‘Do you mean he used to be an actor? He said he works in advertising.’
‘So he does. Back view in commercial films, questioning housewives about their taste in soap flakes.’
‘Don’t tell me you watch television, Patrick!’
‘I don’t, much. But sometimes in other people’s houses, it’s impossible to avoid. And I like to see my colleagues when they perform.’
‘So that’s why I thought I recognised Sam,’ said Liz. ‘I must have seen him on the box.’ She watched plays and ancient movies when she was bored or lonely.
‘I thought he’d go far,’ Patrick said. ‘He did this wonderful Mercutio, so deep, and an understated Shylock that was full of compassion.’
‘Compassion in Shylock?’
‘”If you prick us, do we not bleed?”’ Patrick quoted. ‘And that business of Jessica and the ring.’
‘It was the ring he was so keen to get back, not so much his daughter.’
‘”It was my turquoise: I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor: I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys,”’ repeated Patrick.
‘Well, compassion or not, why did Sam leave the stage?’ Liz asked.
‘I don’t remember the details - trouble over a contract or something. He fe
ll from grace, and from the public eye.’
‘So now he just does telly-ads?’
‘Maybe he gets bit parts in films. I wouldn’t know.’
‘What a sad story,’ said Liz. ‘I’ll be nicer to him now I know it. He seems quite harmless, but vague and remote, and he’s got such an expressionless face, you feel there’s no one there behind it, talking to you. He’s quite friendly with the Whittakers; they’re remote, too, or she is. I don’t think she likes being on a package tour and having a hobnob with riffraff like us. Producing you and the professor will have done our status good with her.’
‘Much you care,’ grinned Patrick. ‘What about her husband?’
‘Francis? Oh, he’s nice,’ said Liz, airily. ‘Not snooty at all. I think he’d like to mix a bit. Still, he does escape all day; she doesn’t ski and he’s rather good.’
‘Odd they chose this sort of holiday,’ Patrick remarked.
‘He says she likes sitting in the sun and playing bridge.’
‘Oh, you’ve had a confidential chat, then?’
Liz glared at Patrick.
‘We had a grog together, up at Obergreutz, quite by chance,’ she told him, frostily. ‘Francis learned to ski during the war. He was a prisoner but he escaped.’
‘Hm, did he, indeed? How interesting,’ Patrick said. ‘What’s his job?’
‘I don’t know. Let’s guess and have a bet.’
‘Right. Loser buys two tickets for the Old Vic, play of her choice,’ said Patrick.
‘Play of his choice,’ Liz corrected. ‘I guess, hmmm, let me see. Maybe a profession. He’s not a doctor, nor a schoolmaster or he wouldn’t be away now; could be a solicitor but I don’t somehow think so. Seems to be comfortably off, her clothes are all expensive. Management consultant?’
‘That’s your final word?’
‘Yes, why not?’
‘You aren’t very observant,’ Patrick said. ‘Haven’t you noticed the healthy patina to his complexion? It isn’t just the holiday, it’s much more basic. He works out of doors. His hands are calloused. He’s away from home in winter, when farmers can take leave. But I don’t think he’s an ordinary farmer. Not arable, livestock or poultry, anyway.’ He meditated. ‘Landscape gardener,’ he decided.
‘Dutch treat if we’re both wrong?’ said Liz, quickly, her own confidence shaken by Patrick’s deductions.
‘Naturally. Dinner on me in either case,’ said Patrick graciously, smiling at her.
The record stopped. Fiona shouted something indistinguishable into the microphone and a tuneless beat blared forth from the speakers.
‘Goodness, what primordial stuff,’ said Patrick.
‘It’s meant to be like heart-beats. Back to the womb and all that,’ Liz informed him. ‘Does it turn you on?’
‘No, too crude. I prefer to smooch to subtle melodies,’ said Patrick, clasping her closely.
Liz was quite willing to smooch with Patrick, but it was impossible to do so in harmony with this so-called tune, and they gave up. Soon afterwards, Frau Hiller said it was her bedtime and she left the party; the professor said it was time for him and Patrick to go home. Liz went up to the hall to see them off, promising to return to the nightclub when they had gone.
At the reception desk, conferring in rapid German with Frau Scholler, was Penny Croft, in her bright green uniform cloak and cap. She saw Liz and waved a hand, not interrupting her flow of speech.
‘Who’s the fugitive from Sherwood Forest?’ inquired Patrick, as he put on his coat.
Liz told him.
‘Conditions can’t be as bad as we thought, since they’ve managed to get here,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking we’ve been having a bit of Shakespeare’s ominous weather these past days.’
The hotel porter came through the swing doors as she spoke, carrying a suitcase in either hand and with two more slung on a strap across his shoulders. He was covered in snow. Bernard Walker followed him into the hall, almost fell over Penny and said, ‘Entschuldigen Sie, bitte,’ then added, ‘Oh, it’s you, Penny, sorry.’ He stamped his feet on the matting and vanished into the men’s cloakroom, near where Liz, the professor, and Patrick were standing.
Penny had finished her monologue to Frau Scholler.
‘We made it, you see,’ she said to Liz. ‘But we had to walk up the lane, the bus got stuck down at the bottom. I was just telling Frau Scholler all about it.’
‘Did you have an awful journey?’
‘It might have been much worse. There’s only one line of traffic over the pass, and it won’t be open much longer at this rate.’
Liz turned to Patrick.
‘You’ll be marooned here after all,’ she said. She introduced him and the professor to Penny, and explained that Patrick was supposed to fly back to England the next day.
‘There’s no sign of the snow slackening,’ Penny said. ‘And it’s much too warm. You’ve had it, Dr. Grant.’
‘Never mind,’ said Patrick, calmly. ‘If Max can bear with me, I can certainly endure being stuck here for a day or two. Innsbruck will have to manage without him, and Mark’s will grind on in my absence, I’ve no doubt. I’ll be in touch, Liz, if the pass is closed tomorrow.’ He kissed her lightly, and then he and the professor, who had a torch, went through the swing doors into the swirling snow, where their two figures and the pale light of the torch were soon swallowed up by the masking blanket of the blizzard.
‘Have you parked all your people?’ Liz asked Penny.
‘Yes. The ones at the Silvretta all know each other; they’re quite a cheery lot, young, and keen to ski. We’ve got two couples here, the Fosters and the Derringtons.’
‘Shall we like them?’ Liz inquired, and as Penny hesitated, she laughed. ‘Come on, don’t be so discreet, what are your first impressions? It looks as if we’ll all be cooped up together while the blizzard lasts; let’s be warned.’
‘Well, let me see.’ Penny was still cautious. Finally she admitted: ‘Roy Foster did a good deal of ear-bashing in the bus. He seems to have skied all over the Alps. His wife’s a quiet little thing; she was a bit upset by the flight, I think. Evidently it was rather bumpy. Frankly I was surprised they managed to keep the airport open. The Derringtons are professional travellers, the kind that can be useful on a tour because they know all the answers and help with the sheep, but they can be a bit too bossy sometimes, those types.’
‘You mean they organise outings and so on?’ Liz shuddered.
‘Mm. That sort of thing. She’s not English, she’s got quite a strong accent. They both speak German very well and they had all the right kinds of money wherever we stopped and shepherded everyone in for supper and ordered drinks and things. It was quite restful for me, really.’
‘You don’t sound very convincing!’ Liz said. She was amused by this enlightening little outburst from the hitherto imperturbable courier.
‘Well, they were helpful, but it’ll be a bit exhausting if they expect me to be as tough and efficient as they are,’ said Penny disarmingly.
‘They sound rather formidable.’
‘Don’t be put off. It’s probably just me making a wrong snap judgement,’ said Penny. ‘But in this job you get so that you slot people into different categories pretty quickly. Roy Foster’s the kind that complains at the least thing, and expects five-star luxury on a package-deal. The Derringtons won’t expect exotic food or anything like that, but they’ll set impossible physical standards. Maybe Bernard will pal up with them and take his masochistic self skiing in their company.’
‘You think he’s a masochist?’
‘Well, don’t you? He’s always punishing himself with great endurance tests, and he never looks as if he’s the slightest bit happy. Fiona and I call him the Lone Ranger, but that business of being a wolf on the prowl is all an act. He hasn’t moved from first base.’
Liz laughed.
‘I never knew you were such a psychologist, Penny,’ she said. ‘Heaven defend me from your perceptive e
ye. Come on down and have a drink if you aren’t too tired. Everyone’s in the nightclub, and look, even your would-be wolf is on the way to join us.’
As they talked, Bernard had emerged from the cloakroom, still in his navy-blue anorak, from the pocket of which protruded his woolly cap. He hesitated in the hall, then took off his anorak, opened a zip pocket in it and removed his wallet, and hung the jacket among the others on the long rack on the wall. He wore a black-and-white patterned Norwegian-knit sweater which hung loosely on his narrow frame. He slid the wallet into a pocket in the shirt he wore beneath the sweater. It gave him an odd appearance.
‘Big deal,’ said Penny. ‘That’s all I need.’ She grinned. ‘But I could use a drink, thanks. I told my people I’d be down there for a while if they wanted a quick one before bed, but I should think they’re all pretty whacked. Even the Derringtons admitted the flight was rough. They circled round at Zurich, wafting up and down in the gusts, several times before they could come down. Not nice at all.’
‘You can sleep tomorrow,’ Liz said.
‘I doubt it. That Silvretta crowd are raring to go. Whatever the day’s like they mean to get set with skis and ski-school tickets and what-not right away.’
Penny’s job was certainly demanding. She had to be cheerful and available, know all the answers, and cope with every emergency. It was a myth to think that things did not get disrupted in countries which every year had a considerable snowfall.
The others were still enjoying themselves in the cellar. Fiona had abandoned her machine, which was playing a Tyrolean waltz, and was sitting beside Jan on the bench by the wall. Barbara and Sam were dancing, and Francis and Sue were talking. Bernard was nowhere to be seen. When Liz and Penny joined the group Francis ordered another round of drinks.
‘We owe someone for two beers already,’ said Liz.
‘Patrick paid for one,’ said Sue. She looked dreamy, and kept glancing at Jan, who had greeted his new beer with what seemed to be an unabated thirst. Liz sighed. She knew that look.
Silent Witness (Dr. Patrick Grant) Page 4