by M C Beaton
‘If you’re so concerned about a clean environment, then stop that nasty little dog of yours pissing and defecating outside my home,’ yelled Agatha.
‘And show a bit of decorum,’ shouted Mrs Darry, her face puce. ‘You’re showing your knickers.’
Agatha angrily pulled her skirt down, which had ridden up about her knees.
If only it could turn out to be Mrs Darry. If only something could happen to remove her from Carsely.
She moodily lit another cigarette. Some doctors in Britain were refusing to treat smokers for illness. Why? With all the taxes on tobacco that the smoker paid, they should be getting first-class free treatment. Why smokers? Why not drunks? Why not fat people? Bloody nanny state. Mrs Darry had put Agatha into a foul temper. People flapped their hands in your face and said, ‘I don’t want to die from passive smoking,’ and then they got in their cars and drove off, blasting carcinogens into the night air. The cigarette tasted foul. Come to think of it, all cigarettes tasted foul after the first three of the day. But come to think of it, too, just when one thought of giving up, some puritan would pop up to lecture sanctimoniously on the evils of nicotine and drive the will to stop farther away. The only time the cigarettes tasted just fine all day long was during the annual No Smoking Day. Funny that, mused Agatha. If they changed it to Smoke-Till-You-Drop Day, probably a lot more addicts would give up.
‘You can come in now,’ called James. ‘That’s the lot. They’re all coming.’
Agatha rose and went back in.
‘What about food?’ he asked.
‘Normally I’d get people like Mrs Bloxby to help me,’ said Agatha, ‘but as we are supposed to be running this on behalf of the water company, we’d better hire a catering firm. We’ll have something like cold salmon and salad and strawberries and cream.’
‘The strawberries are past their best.’
‘People eat strawberries, no matter what. They like the idea. It’s like fish and chips. What a good idea, particularly on a cold night, you think, all warm and hot and golden and smelling divine. In fact, all you get is a sodden packet of greasy food which lies like lead in your stomach.’
‘What about tables and things?’
‘There’s only six of them and two of us – that’s eight. My kitchen table’s quite large and I’ll borrow a table from the school hall for the champagne. They can’t all be hard drinkers. A bottle a head is generous enough.’
‘Right. What I suggest is that you pay for the lot and let me know how much it comes to and I’ll pay half.’
‘I feel I might be able to get the water company to actually foot the bill. I didn’t press hard enough.’
‘Ah, but that would mean the Freemonts might attend as well, and the purpose of this party is to see how they act once they’re all together.’
‘I thought you suspected the Freemonts.’
‘I’ll get around to them.’
Agatha looked at him thoughtfully. ‘So we’re back in business again, James.’
‘Mmm?’ He looked up from some notes he had been making. ‘Oh, yes, back in business.’
‘Don’t you feel any awkwardness?’
‘Don’t let’s get into that, Agatha.’
No, thought Agatha, don’t let’s ever talk about feelings, about the times we made love, about the rows, about pain. Let’s just go on like a couple of bachelors interested in crime.
‘I’d better go and talk to Roy.’
‘You do that,’ he said cheerfully.
Why did I say anything? mourned Agatha as she let herself into her cottage. I promised myself I wouldn’t. What else did I expect? A human response? From James? Rats!
Roy came clattering down the stairs. ‘How did you get on with lover boy?’
‘If you mean James, cut it out. They’re all coming.’
‘What about little me?’
Agatha suddenly didn’t want Roy around. She was already planning what to wear.
‘Skip it this time, Roy,’ she said. ‘I’ll be too busy to cope with a house guest.’
Roy looked hurt. ‘Be like that. But remember, I won’t always be at your beck and call when you need me.’
‘I thought your only interest in me was to further your career.’
‘I think I’ll get an earlier train if there is one.’ Roy looked offended.
‘We’ll have lunch. You can get the afternoon one.’
It was a silent lunch.
‘Look,’ said Agatha, relenting over the coffee. ‘I haven’t been straight with you. I really do want James all to myself.’
‘Waste of space, sweetie.’
‘Perhaps.’ Agatha sighed. ‘Let’s not quarrel. I’ll drive you to Oxford. We’ll have a better choice of trains.’
‘You can do something to make up.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve always wanted to punt.’
‘What? At Oxford? On the river?’
‘Yes.’
‘All right. Finish your coffee and we’ll go now.’
Agatha managed to find a parking place in the High and they walked down to Magdalen Bridge and down the steps at the side to the landing-stage.
‘I haven’t been here before,’ said Agatha. ‘I didn’t know the river would be so narrow here. And there are so many punts out. Are you sure you want to try this?’
‘Yes, yes.’ Roy gave an excited little skip. ‘I read about it in a Sunday supplement.’
When they asked for a punt, the boatman told them the charge was eight pounds for an hour, twenty-five pounds deposit and to leave identification.
‘I’m a bit short,’ said Roy. ‘Could you . . .?’
‘Oh, all right.’ Agatha paid the money and left her driving licence.
‘I feel this is a mistake.’ Agatha scrambled on to the seat of the punt. Roy seized the long pole. ‘There are paddles,’ said Agatha. ‘Wouldn’t it be a good idea to paddle to a quiet bit?’ There were not only punts but rowing boats.
The boatman pushed them out. Roy dug the pole in and pushed. The punt swung in a wide circle and bumped into a puntload of students.
‘Steady on,’ called one.
Roy was pink with embarrassment. ‘I’ll use the paddle.’ He shipped the pole and crouched down in the bow and paddled. After a few false starts and a few more bumps, they headed up the river.
Then he stood up and took up the pole again. Agatha lay back in the punt and decided to ignore Roy’s amateurish efforts. The sun was filtering down through the trees. Conservatories were glittering on one side, a cricket pavilion on the other, willow trees trailing in the water, dappled light and peace. But not a typically English scene, thought Agatha, looking at the students. I always imagined everyone in white and ladies with parasols. The students all looked terribly young and undernourished and seemed to favour black shirts, tatty jeans and pony-tails – the men, that is. They came from a mixture of nationalities. She was roused from her reverie as a branch banged against her head.
‘Look where you’re going!’
‘Sorry, just getting the hang of this.’
James. Would she and James ever get together again? Would she ever stop thinking about him? Why was it Guy meant so little? Perhaps because sex did not mean intimacy. Talk was intimacy. Friendship was intimacy. Perhaps if she had practised friendship a bit more in earlier life, she would know better how to handle him. Or just leave him alone, said a cynical voice in her brain. It’s sick. You need an exorcist.
‘I’m really getting good at this.’
‘Can’t you steer a straight course?’ asked Agatha. ‘You nearly banged into that rowing-boat.’
‘We’re doing fine,’ said Roy ‘You just dig the pole in, Aggie, and thrust –’
To Agatha’s horror, he pole-vaulted and landed face-down on the grassy bank while Agatha and the punt went shooting off in the other direction. The punt hit the opposite bank with force as she instinctively rose to her feet, and Agatha was catapulted into the river.
Roy
jumped in to save her, swam towards her and made ineffectual grabs at her hair.
‘Leave me alone!’ shouted Agatha. ‘My handbag’s in the punt. Get it. I mean, get the punt.’
Under the delighted gaze of a boatload of Japanese, Roy seized the rope at the front of the punt and towed it to the bank on which he had first landed. Agatha swam after him.
He helped her out.
‘All right?’ called a Japanese student. ‘Very funny. You in a film?’
‘No,’ said Agatha curtly. She rounded on Roy. ‘Let’s just get back in that damned instrument of torture and get back.’
As the amused Japanese looked on, they got back on board. ‘We’ll pull you back,’ shouted one.
‘No, we’ll manage,’ said Roy.
‘No, we won’t. That would be great,’ said Agatha.
They sat in the punt dripping wet, faces red with mortification as the Japanese towed them back to the landing-stage. A group of English students were waiting to greet these Japanese friends and they laughed and clapped as Roy and Agatha, bedraggled and miserable, were helped from the punt.
They walked together up the High, a yard apart, and people turned to stare at them.
‘I am taking you straight to the station,’ said Agatha when they got in the car. ‘You’ve got your luggage. You can change in the station loo.’
‘I’m really, really sorry,’ said Roy meekly. ‘It was something I’d always wanted to do.’
Agatha drove in grim silence.
‘Look, Aggie. I left school at fifteen, never went to university. We all have dreams. Punting at Oxford was one of mine.’
Agatha slowed down.
‘I tell you what we’ll do,’ she said. ‘Dry yourself and change at the station. Then take a cab up to Marks and Spencer and buy me some dry clothes and then I’ll change. I’ll take you for tea at the Randolph.’
Three hours later, Agatha made her way back to Carsely wearing a new outfit of blouse and skirt, along with the new underwear underneath and a pair of new flat shoes which were extremely comfortable. Roy had enjoyed his tea and they had begun to laugh helplessly over their exploits on the river. Agatha smiled reminiscently. She could not remember laughing so hard in such a long time.
As she drove down the winding country lane which led to the village of Carsely under the arching tunnel of green, green trees, she felt like some sort of animal heading homeward to a comfortable burrow.
And since her fall in the river, she hadn’t thought of James, not once.
That evening she went to a meeting of the Carsely Ladies’ Society at the vicarage. Mrs Bloxby served tea and sandwiches in the vicarage garden. Mrs Darry was not present and Agatha entertained the rest of them with a highly embroidered tale of her punting adventure.
The meeting then got down to business. The society had decided to put on a concert. Agatha groaned. The concerts were a nightmare of boredom. Not one of them had a bit of talent and yet so many were delighted to get up on the stage and sing in cracked voices.
And yet they attended other concerts in other villages and the performances were just as awful. Mrs Bloxby had explained to her gently that everyone secretly wanted to perform on the stage and this was a chance for them all to get their moment in the sun. Agatha noticed, however, that the vicar’s wife, like herself, never performed.
Conversation after the official meeting turned to the murders in Ancombe. ‘I’ve got all the members of the parish council coming to a garden party at my place,’ said Agatha. ‘I haven’t invited any of you because the water company is paying for it and it’s public relations business.’
‘They’re a funny lot,’ said Miss Simms, the secretary. She was wearing white stiletto-heeled sandals, the heels digging into the smooth vicarage lawn like tent pegs. ‘I never complain,’ Mrs Bloxby had said. ‘It aerates the lawn.’
‘I mean,’ went on Miss Simms, ‘they’ve been at each other’s throats for years. I think the reason none of them resign is that they don’t want to give the others the satisfaction. I’m sorry for you, Mrs Raisin. Sounds like the garden party from hell.’
But James was back in Agatha’s mind along with worries about what to wear to dazzle him.
The day of the garden party was perfect. Clear blue skies and hot sun.
Agatha, in a fine gown of delicately flowered silk and with a wide shady straw hat bedecked with large silk roses, supervised the caterers and took a last look around the garden. Then she went upstairs to check her make-up.
The sound of cars in the lane below her window made her look down. They all seemed to have arrived at once. Mary Owen was wearing a shirtwaister of striped cotton and flat-heeled shoes, and Angela Buckley white cotton trousers and a blue cotton top. Jane Cutler had on a simple Liberty print dress.
Feeling suddenly ridiculously overdressed, Agatha whipped off her hat and gown and put on a cotton skirt and a plain white blouse, and then ran downstairs to meet them.
James was now out in the garden with the caterers. He was wearing faded blue jeans and an open-necked shirt. Agatha realized with a pang that he must have let himself in with the key to her cottage that she had given him in happier times.
She braced herself for her visitors.
The men, Bill Allen, Andy Stiggs and Fred Shaw, as if to make up for the informal dress of the women and James, were all wearing blazers, collars and ties. Bill Allen’s blazer had a large gold-embroidered crest on the pocket.
Champagne was poured all round. Agatha raised her glass. ‘Here’s to goodwill,’ she said. ‘We’ve all had our differences, but I think we should all be friends.’
‘Why?’ demanded Mary Owen.
‘Because it’s more pleasant that way.’
Angela Buckley looked at Agatha suspiciously. ‘You don’t belong to one of those mad religious sects, do you?’
‘I should think it’s therapy,’ said Mary Owen. ‘People who indulge in therapy groups are always wanting chummy get-togethers. Any moment now we’ll all have to sit in a circle and talk about the nasty thing that happened to us in the wood-shed all those years ago.’
‘That’s a good one,’ said Bill Allen and gave a great horse-laugh.
‘I’m not surprised you go around murdering each other,’ said James in a cold, carrying voice.
‘Here now. None of that,’ said Andy Stiggs, red in the face above a tie which seemed to be strangling him. ‘We’re all respectable citizens, and if you ask me, that water company’s behind these murders.’
‘That’s what I think,’ said Bill Allen.
Muscular Fred Shaw was sweating. ‘You lot don’t know how to think, that’s my opinion. You hated Robina like poison, Mary, and so did you, Angela.’
‘I didn’t hate her,’ said Mary. ‘She was one of those dreary little fluffy women of small brain.’
Between the acrimonious exchanges, all were drinking champagne, an efficient waiter making sure all the glasses were kept topped up.
‘You and Angela could have learned something about femininity from Robina,’ said Fred. ‘She was all woman, not a leathery trout like you two.’
‘A common little man like you wouldn’t know a feminine woman even if she leaped out of your soup and bit you on the bum,’ said Angela.
‘How do you lot ever get anything done for the parish if you snipe at each other like this?’ demanded James. ‘Aren’t any of you curious to know why Robert Struthers and Robina Toynbee were murdered, and by whom? It could have been one of you.’
There was a shocked silence.
‘What’s this?’ demanded Fred Shaw. ‘One of us? Why?’
‘Why not?’ said Mary Owen. ‘You were up at Robina’s cottage the evening before she was murdered, Fred. She would have told you about how she planned to make that speech from her garden wall.’
‘I’m the only one of you that liked Robina.’ Fred wrenched off his tie. Then he took off his blazer and rolled up his shirt sleeves. ‘I often went round there, and so did Bill and Andy. It was
you and Angela that always had it in for her.’
‘Nonsense.’ Angela looked at the buffet table. ‘Are we going to eat that stuff or not? I’m starving.’
There was a temporary lull while they collected plates of food. Although Agatha had put out chairs in the garden, Angela and Mary sat down on the grass, a sensible move, since it meant they did not have to balance plates of food on their knees. The others joined them.
James began to ask them what they felt about the proposed bypass around Ancombe. Soon Fred Shaw was declaiming it was a disgrace because it would ruin shopkeepers like himself if the through traffic was taken away, and Bill Allen, who ran the garden centre, agreed with him.
‘I think it’s a good idea,’ put in Mary. ‘I mean, who wants droves of Americans?’
‘What’s up with Americans?’ demanded Andy Stiggs. ‘Damn this tie. You’ve had the right idea, Fred.’ He took his off and then his blazer.
How different the dream always is from the reality, marvelled Agatha. In her dream about the garden party, she stood there gracious in her pretty gown with the lightest of breezes fluttering through the flowers in her hat. James, in white shirt, blazer and cravat, would be bending over her, smiling in admiration. But James was sitting on the grass with the others, eating cold salmon and drinking champagne and apparently concentrating solely on getting to know these councillors better.
‘Oh, these Americans. Everything always so quaint and pretty. Pah.’
‘I thought American-bashing was desperately unfashionable these days,’ said Agatha. ‘I mean, the ones that get this far are usually pretty sophisticated and seem to know more about the Cotswolds than the locals.’
‘So brash and vulgar.’ Mary glanced at Agatha. ‘Like to like, I suppose.’
‘Oh, shut your face and eat your food,’ said James, and to Agatha’s surprise, Mary laughed and threw him an almost flirtatious look.
‘What have you got to do with this water business?’ Andy Stiggs asked James.