by H. E. Bates
He started to kiss her passionately again. But this time she held him away. The Brigadier, she said, would be wondering what was happening. He was to go back to the Brigadier.
The twins’ll be back with the ice-cream any moment too,’ she said. The twins had gone to the village, a quarter of a mile down the road, with orders to bring back the largest blocks of strawberry and chocolate mousse they could buy.
‘Take the Brigadier a few crisps,’ Ma said. ‘They’ll keep him going for half an hour.’
With reluctance Pop went back to the Brigadier, who sat staring into an empty glass, elbows on his knees, his trouser legs hitched up so that his socks and thin hairy shins were revealed. Pop saw now that the socks were odd, one yellow and one white, and that both had potatoes in the heels.
‘Crisp, General?’ he said and held out a big plastic orange dish of potato crisps, glistening fresh and salty.
The Brigadier, who belonged to two London clubs that he used only twice a year and spent most of the rest of his time wearing himself to a skeleton chopping wood, washing dishes, clipping hedges, mowing the lawn, and cleaning out blocked drainpipes because he couldn’t afford a man, accepted the crisps with normal reluctance that actually concealed a boyish gratitude.
Pop also suggested another snifter.
‘No, no. Thanks all the same. No, no,’ the Brigadier said. ‘No really,’ and then allowed his glass to be taken away from him with no more than dying stutters of protestation.
Half an hour later two of the three geese were lying side by side, browned to perfection, deliciously varnished with running gravy, in a big oval blue meat dish on the table under the walnut tree. Other blue dishes stood about the table containing green peas and new potatoes veined with dark sprigs of mint, baked onions, asparagus, roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, and broad beans in parsley sauce. There were also big blue boats of apple sauce and gravy.
There had been times in his life when the Brigadier would have been prompted, out of sheer good form, social constraint, and various other preventive forces of up-bringing, to describe the sight of all this as rather lacking in decency. Today he merely sat with restrained bewilderment, tortured by odours of goose-flesh and sage-and-onions, watching the faces of Pop, Ma, Mister Charlton, and the entire Larkin brood while Pop carved with dextrous ease at the birds, themselves not at all unlike brown laden galleons floating in a glistening gravy sea.
Even the stiff prawns of his eyebrows made no quiver of surprise as Pop, flashing carving knife and steel in air, suggested that if Charley boy wanted to help he could pour the port out now.
Mr Charlton put the port on the table in its champagne bucket, all beady with icy dew.
‘Mix it,’ Pop said. ‘It makes a jolly good drink, red and white mixed together.’
Mr Charlton went round the table, pouring and mixing port. He had been introduced to the Brigadier by a more than usually facetious Pop as ‘a late entry – chap on the tax lark’.
‘Actually a real pukka tax-gatherer you mean?’ the Brigadier said, as if astonished that there could be such a person.
‘Inspector’s office,’ Mr Charlton said.
‘Tried to rope me in on that swindle yesterday,’ Pop said. He laughed derisively, in his customary ringing fashion. ‘I should like, eh, General? What do you say?’
The Brigadier confessed, with a certain sadness, that he paid no tax. At least, hardly any.
‘And rightly so!’ Pop thundered.
Succulent pieces of bird were now being carved and dispatched about the table with breezy speed.
‘That all right for you, General?’ The Brigadier found himself facing an entire leg of goose and a large mound of sage-and-onions.
‘Start!’ Pop ordered. ‘Don’t let it get cold, General!’ To the goose Mariette came to add peas, beans, Yorkshire pudding, and two sorts of potatoes, so that finally, when gravy and apple sauce had been ladled on, no single centimetre of naked plate could be seen.
A moment later the Brigadier, faced with superior forces and not knowing where to attack, saw Ma, like some huge yellow-and-scarlet butterfly glowing in the walnut shade, come up on his flank, bearing a deep dish of fat and buttery asparagus. With dry humour he started to confess to being out-numbered, a problem that Ma at once solved by placing the dish between the Brigadier and the head of table, where she herself now sat down.
‘We’ll share, shall we, General?’ she said. ‘Help yourself from the dish. Everybody else has had some.’
It was some moments before the Brigadier, deeply touched and painfully strung up by the first delicious tortures of eating, could relax enough to remember formality and lift his glass to Ma.
‘Mr Charlton, I think we should raise a glass to our hostess.’
‘’Ear, ’ear,’ Pop said. ‘Cheers to Ma.’
The Brigadier bent upwards from the table, raising his glass to Ma. Mr Charlton also half-rose and raised his glass and at the same moment Victoria said, pointing to the Brigadier:
‘You got potatoes in your socks, I saw them.’
‘Now, now,’ Pop said. ‘Manners. Elbows!’
Victoria was silent.
‘Pop’s got ’em at a word,’ Ma said proudly. ‘And now eat your potatoes,’ she said to Victoria. ‘Never mind about the General’s.’
‘This is most superb cooking,’ the Brigadier said. ‘Where did you learn to cook, Mrs Larkin?’
‘She learned at The Three Cocks hotel at Fordington,’ Pop said. ‘That’s where she learnt. I can tell you. And it’s never been the same since she left there.’
‘I can only say the Cocks’ loss is your gain,’ the Brigadier said, a remark that Ma found so amusing that she started choking again, her mouth jammed by a piece of asparagus.
‘Hit her, General!’ Pop said. ‘Middle o’ the back!’
The Brigadier was utterly startled by this sudden and unnatural order. He moved vaguely to action by putting down his knife and fork, but a second later Ma had recovered.
‘All right, Ma?’ Pop said. ‘Drink a drop o’ wine.’
Ma, sipping wine, said thanks, she was all right again.
‘Ma’s got a very small gullet,’ Pop explained to the Brigadier, ‘compared with the rest of her.’
‘Have you told the children about the Gymkhana, Larkin?’ the Brigadier said.
‘Good God, went clean out of my head,’ Pop said. Waving a dripping wing-bone, which he had been busily sucking for some moments past, he informed the entire table in proud, imperial tones: ‘Going to hold the Gymkhana in the medder, kids. Here.’
Before anyone could speak an excited Mariette was on her feet, running round the table to Pop, whom she began kissing with great fervour on the lips, hardly a degree less passionately than Pop, in the kitchen, had kissed Ma.
‘Lovely, lovely man. Lovely, lovely Pop.’
Mr Charlton sat tremulous, completely shaken. A curious wave of emotion, at first hot, then cold, lapped entirely through him from the small of his back to his brain. Unaccountably he found himself both jealous, then afraid, of the unquenchable demonstration that had left Pop, laughing loudly, hugging Mariette in return. He was not used to unquenchable demonstrations.
‘That’s the loveliest, loveliest news. Don’t you think so, Mr Charlton?’
‘You should really thank the General,’ Pop said. ‘His idea.’
‘Committee –’
The word had hardly broken from the lips of the Brigadier before Mariette was at his side, kissing him too. The Brigadier, looking formally delighted, began to wipe his mouth with his serviette, but whether to wipe away kiss or asparagus butter it was not possible to say. He was still dabbing his mouth when Mariette kissed Ma, who explained to the Brigadier: ‘Mad on horses, General. Absolutely stark raving mad on horses,’ and then came round the table to where Mr Charlton sat concentrating with every nerve on scraping the last tissues of goose-flesh from a leg bone.
Mr Charlton was all mixed up. He was fighting to concentrate.
He was fighting to disentangle one thought, one fear, from another. There had crossed his mind, for no sensible reason at all, the uneasy notion that the goose he was now eating might well be part of the same living bird that had so sinuously, shimmeringly wrapped its neck about his legs the previous day, with the shattering sensation of their being caressed by silk stockings. It was the most disturbing thought of his life and he knew that he was blushing. He knew he was afraid.
‘Oh! Mr Charlton, I’m so happy I think I’ll kiss you too.’
Mariette, to the unconcealed delight and satisfaction of Ma and Pop, bent and kissed Mr Charlton briefly, but with purpose, full on the lips. Mr Charlton recoiled in a crimson cloud, hearing about him trumpets of disaster. Everyone was laughing.
When he came to himself he knew he could never forget that moment. He was trembling all over. It was impossible to describe what the full soft lips of Mariette had felt like against his own except that it was, perhaps, like having them brushed by the skin of a warm firm plum, in full ripeness, for the first time.
While Mr Charlton was still blushing Pop retired to the kitchen and fetched another goose. He began to carve for the Brigadier several thin extra-succulent slices of the breast. This one, he started saying, as he slid the knife across the crackling dark golden skin, was the tenderest of them all and a moment later confirmed Mr Charlton’s worst fears by laughing uproariously:
‘This must be the joker that was under the table yesterday and heard us talking. Eh, Ma? Think o’ that.’
‘Knowing birds,’ Ma said and turned to the Brigadier to ask: ‘What was it you was going to say, General, about the committee?’
‘Oh! merely that I was elected to be spokesman. To ask your husband –’
‘Who’s on the Committee?’ Ma said.
‘Well, Edith is secretary. Edith Pilchester. I expect she’ll be coming to see you.’
‘Oh! I love old Edith,’ Pop said. ‘Edith’s a sport.’
‘You be careful she don’t love you,’ Ma said. ‘I wouldn’t put anything past her.’
‘Ah! perfickly harmless,’ Pop said.
‘Splendid organizer,’ the Brigadier said.
‘That’s what she thinks. She fancies she could organize a stallion into having pups,’ Ma said, ‘but that’s where she’s wrong,’ and once again, as she did so often at her own jokes, laughed with jellified splendour.
‘Then there’s Mrs Peele and George Carter,’ the Brigadier said.
‘Still living together I suppose?’ Ma said.
‘I understand the arrangement still holds.’
‘Disgusting.’
Ma made tutting noises as she sucked a final piece of asparagus. Pop belched with sudden richness and said ‘Manners.’ It was terrible the way people carried on, Ma said and Pop agreed.
‘Then there’s Freda O’Connor.’
‘She’s another tart if you like,’ Ma said. ‘Showing off her bosom.’
‘And Jack Woodley.’
‘That feller’s another So-and-so,’ Pop said. ‘Just like Fortescue. A complete b –’
‘Not in front of the twins,’ Ma said. ‘I don’t mind Victoria. She’s not old enough to understand.’
‘And then Mrs Borden. That makes the lot.’
Ma, eating the last of her peas with a tablespoon, made more noises of disgust and asked if Mrs Borden was still keeping as sober as ever? Supposed she was?
‘With the same fish-like capacity I understand,’ the Brigadier said.
‘Terrible,’ Ma said. ‘Shocking. Terrible state of affairs when you let drink get you down like that.’
‘Disgusting,’ Pop said. ‘Disgusting.’
It was time for ice-cream. Mariette rose to fetch it from the kitchen, together with a jug of real Jersey, hoping that Mr Charlton would seize so good an opportunity and come with her, but Mr Charlton was still all mixed up. The day had grown exceptionally humid and warm, the air thick with the stirring breath of growing leaves and grasses. Mariette felt the sweetness of it tingling madly in her nostrils and remembered the kiss she had given Mr Charlton. She was sorry for Mr Charlton and wondered if it would ever be possible to make love with him. Making love might ease his mind. In the meadow beyond the house she had noticed how high the buttercups were growing, thick and sappy and golden among the grasses’ feathery flower, and she wondered what it would be like to make love to Mr Charlton in a buttercup field. She thought she could but try. She was growing fonder and fonder of Mr Charlton. His eyes were soft, endearing, and sometimes even sad and she found herself fascinated by their brown, delicate paintbrush lashes.
‘Cuppa tea, General?’
After the ice-cream Ma was sitting back with a great air of content, as if really getting ready to enjoy herself.
‘No, no, no. No really, thank you.’
‘No trouble. Always have one after dinner.’
The thought of tea after two plates of goose, asparagus, sage-and-onions, ice-cream, and everything else provoked in the Brigadier’s stomach a restless thunderstorm. He suppressed a belch of his own. Pop was not so successful and a positive bark leapt out, causing Primrose to say:
‘I love sage-and-onions. You keeping having a taste of it all afternoon. And sometimes all night too.’
Mariette went away to the house to make tea, hoping again that Mr Charlton would go with her, but Mr Charlton was still battling for courage and concentration. Ma hoped so too and made pointed remarks about the heaviness of cups and trays. Mr Charlton, soporific as well as fearful, made no hint of a move and Ma gave it all up, at last, in disgust. He just didn’t know his technique, that was all.
When at last Mariette came across the garden with the tea the Brigadier was moved to admiration of the dark, delicious little figure advancing with shapely provocation under the pure hot light of early afternoon.
‘Remarkably pretty she looks,’ he told Ma, who agreed with surprisingly energetic warmth, saying:
‘I’m glad somebody thinks so. She’s been hiding her light under a bushel long enough.’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ Pop said, ‘as you can say that.’ He was thinking of the news Ma had told him two days before. Well, he supposed it was hiding her light in a way. Keeping it dark, anyway.
Everybody except the Brigadier had tea, which Mariette poured out thick and strong, with Jersey cream. To Mr Charlton’s surprise nobody suggested Johnny Walker milk, though Pop stirred into his own cup two teaspoonfuls of port. It was still icy.
‘Helps to cool it down,’ he explained. ‘Ma can’t do with it in a saucer.’
An afternoon of delicious golden content folded its transparent envelope more and more softly about the paradisiacal Larkin world, over the outlying meadow scintillating with its million buttercups and the shady fragrant walnut tree. Pop sighed and remarked how perfick it was. If only the Gymkhana was as perfick it would be marvellous, he said. Should they have fireworks? ‘Tell the Committee I’ll provide the fireworks,’ he said to the Brigadier. ‘That’ll make it go with a bang.’
The Brigadier, who did not answer, was almost asleep. The twins and the younger children had already slipped away. Ma was falling slowly asleep too, her head falling sideways, so that she was now less like a bright expansive butterfly than a vast yellow parrot tucking its head under its sleepy wing.
‘Look at that sky, Charley,’ Pop said and indicated with the tip of an unlighted cigar the exquisite expanse of all heaven, blue as flax-flower. ‘There’s summat worth while for you. Perfick. Blimey, I wonder how you fellers can work in offices.’
Mr Charlton was beginning to wonder too.
‘Cigar?’
Mr Charlton declined the cigar with low thanks.
‘Ought to have given the General one,’ Pop said. The Brigadier was now fast asleep. Bad manners to have forgot the General, he thought. He liked the General. The old sport might not live very grand but he was unmistakably a gent. Not like George Carter and Jack Woodley and a few other baskets he could name. Nor Fred
a O’Connor and Mrs Battersby and Molly Borden and that crowd. They didn’t think much of people like him and Ma. That’s why they’d sent the General along as spokesman. He knew.
He liked Edith Pilchester though. Edith was a sport. He laughed softly as he thought that if they had fireworks at the Gymkhana he would put one under Edith’s skirts, just to see what happened. ‘Probably never turn a hair,’ he thought. ‘Probably get a thrill.’
‘Put the cigar on the General’s plate, Charley,’ he said to Mr Charlton, ‘when you get round to going.’
‘I think we’re going now,’ Mariette said to Mr Charlton, ‘aren’t we?’
Mr Charlton, who had been in a mix-up all afternoon, abruptly fumbled to his feet, expressing agreement by taking the cigar and laying it beside the Brigadier’s head, reclining now in flushed oblivion on the table.
‘Going on the boat?’ Pop said.
‘Might do,’ Mariette said. ‘Might not get that far.’
‘Perfick anyway,’ Pop said, ‘wherever you go.’
As they crossed from the garden to the big meadow beyond Mariette took Mr Charlton’s hand. In the startled fashion of a young colt he almost jumped as she touched him. A wave of fragrance blew on the lightest breath of wind from the direction of the river, driving into her quickening nostrils odours of hawthorn bloom, clover, an entire valley of rising grasses, and distant invisible fields of early may.
It was so exquisitely strong that suddenly she bent down, took off her shoes, and started running.
A moment later, Mr Charlton, running too, realized how pretty, how exciting, her naked feet were.
5
That evening Pop, after a half hour of twilight spent with Ma in the bluebell wood, listening to a whole orchestra of nightingales, came back to the house to urge on Mr Charlton the virtues of a little sick leave.
‘Ma and me don’t think you look all that grand,’ he said.
Ma followed this up by saying that she didn’t like the look round Mr Charlton’s cheekbones. There were white spots on them. White spots were a bad sign, but of what she didn’t say.