by Bates, H. E.
Over-smartly dressed in a light blue suit, sugar-pink shirt, blue and white tie and white buckskin shoes, a dandified curl in both his moustache and hair, Captain Broadbent arrived at the Larkin house about half past three on the following Sunday afternoon. The weather, as Pop had hoped it would be, was hot and the junk-yard a dozy dormitory of prostrate pigs, soporific geese, hens, turkeys and guinea-fowl all resting in the shade of ruined bits of machinery, elder trees and haystacks. Pop’s yellow-and-black Rolls Royce stood under a corrugated hovel and the new Jaguar, a discreet dove-grey, in the shade of a willow tree whose gently turning leaves provided almost the only movement in the summer air.
Outside the front door of the house, to Captain Broadbent’s astonishment, stood the two suits of armour, each now nursing a battle-axe in its arms. Ma had decided after all that the inside passage was slightly cramped for them, especially after she had run sharply into them in the twilight one evening. She thought that if anything they looked even more classy outside than in and Pop was inclined to agree with her, especially at night, when he was able to switch on the red, yellow and blue fairy lights inside the vizors.
Walking round to the back of the house, Captain Broadbent presently found himself facing a scene that merely served to increase the contemptuous astonishment already aroused by junk, armour and general farmyard menagerie. People simply didn’t live like this; it just wasn’t done. The big swimming pool, its depth a brilliant turquoise blue, was almost indecent in its ostentation, a blown-up status symbol if ever there was one. The screaming of many children reminded him of one of those awful day trips to the seaside. More astonishing than anything else, perhaps, was the fact that Pop, in anticipation of Mademoiselle Dupont’s visit from France, had already run up the tricolor on one side of the top diving board, with the Union Jack on the other. Ma had badly wanted to fly the Royal Standard too, but Montgomery had pointed out that you couldn’t do that unless the Queen was in residence, which wasn’t likely to be yet. Ma, a fervent royalist, said more was the pity.
Half-way along one side of the pool Ma, in a bright canary yellow bathing costume, gave the impression of a large well-filled balloon that had ever so gently descended from space and was now resting on the tiniest of camp stools. She was painting on a really large canvas today, trying to embrace the entire pool, tricolor, Union Jack, gambolling figures and all.
On the opposite side of the pool was erected a piece of apparatus the like of which Captain Broadbent couldn’t ever remember seeing before. It beat the band, he told himself, for sheer vulgarity. He supposed the thing was some sort of portable drink-wagon or bar. The entire affair was made of bamboo, with a roof of palm thatch and designs of coconut and pineapple scratched about it in dark poker-work, so that the whole had a marked Polynesian effect. It was set about with glasses of all colours, emerald, vermilion, purple, amber and blue, together with corkscrews, bottle-openers as big as horseshoes and scores of bottles and siphons of different kinds. It looked like something out of some beastly opera, Captain Broadbent thought.
He was just on the point of turning his back on this second and even louder symbol of status when Pop, with splendid warmth, hailed him from behind the bar, shaking a vast silver cocktail shaker as his signal of welcome.
‘Ah! there you are, Colonel. Didn’t think you’d been able to find us. Perfick day, Colonel, eh?’
More by instinct than design Pop was always inclined to promote a military man if he could. In return Captain Broadbent seemed to preen himself at this sudden rise in rank and at once went through the ritual of brushing his moustache with an extravagant sweep of his hand.
‘Afternoon, Larkin. Not too early, I trust?’
‘Just right, Colonel, Perfick. Come and meet the family. Ma!’ he yelled across the pool, ‘Colonel Broadbent’s just arrived. Colonel, this is Ma. Recently taken up the painting lark. Mostly goes in for the nude.’
‘Afternoon, Colonel,’ Ma shouted. ‘Sweatin’ hot, isn’t it?’
The Captain, in the middle of the stiffest of bows, slightly recoiled at this description of the day and Pop at once proceeded to introduce the rest of his family.
‘Zinnia, Petunia, Montgomery, Victoria – where’s Victoria? Oh! that’s her, in the red bikini, floating. And Primrose – that’s Primrose, just taking the umbrella to Ma. Ma’s finding it a bit too hot I fancy. Hope she won’t get one of her turns.’
Ma sometimes had turns when it was over-hot and it was a bit of a job sometimes to get her round. Rum generally helped, though.
‘And this is my eldest, Mariette. Mrs Charlton. I think Mr Charlton must be having a lay-down indoors somewhere. Unless he’s larking about somewhere with the girls.’
As he said this Pop gave the Captain the most indiscreet and knowing of winks, as if the two of them shared some very saucy secret. The Captain hardly knew what to do in return. The young goddess in her dark green bikini, swinging her body along the far side of the pool, a black umbrella twirling over one shoulder, had already unnerved him, so much so that he was totally unprepared to deal with the vision of a three-parts naked Mariette, now turning over on her back on a bright blue foam mattress, her breasts every bit as eloquent as her dark eyes as she raised them to the sun.
‘Hullo, Colonel,’ she said softly, smiling. ‘You chose a good day to come,’ and it was almost as if she had conferred the promotion on him herself, so that he felt he would surrender his rise in rank only with extreme reluctance, if he surrendered it at all.
‘Snifter, Colonel? What’ll it be?’
‘Something soft and cold, I think, if –’
‘Just mixing a new one up,’ Pop said. ‘Moon-Rocket. Pretty harmless. Mostly ice – dash o’ vodka and all that, for flavour. Care to try it? It’s a good quencher.’
The Captain, still unnerved and slightly aloof, said he would and Pop made athletic manoeuvres with the cocktail shaker.
‘What price our little paradise, Colonel, eh?’
The Captain remained mute; he could put no price on the little paradise at all.
‘Well, here we are, Colonel. Try that for size.’
Pop now handed the Captain a tall, silver-rimmed glass that seemed to contain about a pint of amber liquid topped by a sprig of mint, a slice of orange and a cherry. The glass was beautifully frosted and the Captain raised it to his lips at first with caution, then decided it seemed aromatically pleasant and drank deep.
Some twenty seconds later he found himself going through the alarming experience of supposing that he had been electrocuted somewhere in the pit of his stomach. He choked, fighting vainly to regain both equilibrium and breath.
‘It’s got somethink, Colonel, hasn’t it?’ Pop said. ‘Drink up! Cheers!’
Pop proceeded to lower the level of his own glass by several inches and immediately made as if to fill both glasses up again. The Captain, who was by now convinced that his eyeballs were standing an inch or so out of the top of his head, managed to put his hand over the rim of his glass, at the same time entreating Pop in a much weakened voice to be steady.
Pop, smacking his lips, assured the Captain that this was one of the best he had ever invented. Ma adored it too.
‘Ma!’ he shouted across the pool, at the same time lifting the cocktail shaker. ‘How about you?’
‘Please.’
A few minutes later the Captain was assailed by a new vision. It was that of Angela Snow appearing from the direction of the house, tall, elegant and languid as ever, and suddenly he suffered yet another alarming experience: that of supposing she had nothing on. In a moment he remembered Pop’s jovial warning to him not to be surprised if he saw some of the girls running round in the never-never and he could only suppose this was some new evidence of vulgarity. Then, as Angela came nearer, he saw that the illusion of nakedness was actually caused by the briefest of bikinis, in colour almost exactly that of her light golden skin. He felt much relieved.
Then as she came nearer still he recognized that he had met her
somewhere before: perhaps once or twice at a party. He vaguely recalled that her father was a judge or something of that sort. Anyway she came from the right bloodstock and he couldn’t for the life of him think what a well-connected girl like her was doing with this vulgar crowd. He wasn’t against democracy and mixing with average chaps and all that but by God there were things which shook you.
‘Want you to meet Miss Snow, Colonel. Angela. Very old friend of ours.’
‘Colonel?’ Angela turned on the Captain the most bewitching and languid of smiles. ‘You were Captain the last time we met. Promoted, eh?’
‘Well, I –’
The Captain brushed his moustache, reluctant to deny his sudden rise in rank and Angela said:
‘Well, congratulations.’
‘Well, actually –’
‘Calls for a drink, don’t it?’ Pop said. ‘Angela? What about it? One of my specials?’
‘Gorgeous idea.’
The Captain was confused. He preened his moustache with an elliptical sort of sweep, haughtily. He felt uncomfortable and hot. Perhaps, he thought, it was time to get changed? A dip might cool him down.
‘Perhaps I might get into some cooler togs, Larkin. Where could I change?’
‘In the house,’ Pop said. ‘I’ll come and show you.’
‘Jasmine’s there,’ Angela said and gave Pop a slow, soft, secret wink of her own. ‘She’ll show the Colonel where.’
‘Drink up before you go,’ Pop urged the Captain, ‘I’ll have another ready when you get back,’ and the Captain, bracing himself, drank as if at a poison cup.
In a rather shrill voice Ma then called across the pool:
‘Why didn’t you bring your wife over, Colonel, on a lovely day like this?’
‘She doesn’t care greatly for the social life, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh! don’t she? Pity. Wouldn’t like me to ring her up and get her over for a cuppa tea, I suppose?’
‘I fancy not. She never really stirs out much.’
Once again Pop, as he listened, saw in his mind the image of the fearful, fumbling figure scraping at its weeds.
A moment later little Oscar, chasing a large red-and-blue ball, stumbled awkwardly, fell on his face and lay prostrate, bawling loudly. This was a signal for everyone else to shriek with abandoned laughter, so that the whole afternoon suddenly seemed to explode violently about Captain Broadbent’s ears. The din was perfectly maddening and suddenly the Captain, again brushing his moustache, fled from it with what he thought was a certain critical dignity.
The echo of children’s caterwauling was still ringing in his ears when he stepped over the Larkin threshold. He supposed he would have to change and get into that filthy pool with all those filthy kids but for a few uncertain moments he found it hard to lower himself to do so. That filthy drink of Larkin’s together with the thought of his accidental rise in rank didn’t help much either and for a few moments longer he struggled desperately with the idea of whether or not to abandon everything and run.
Two words were enough to extract him from his dilemma and they were spoken so softly that for a moment he was not only uncertain as to where they came from but if they were real at all.
‘Hullo there.’
Another feminine vision, this time so stunning as to be almost frightening, stood half-way up the stairs. Like something carved out of flawless cream marble, every limb splendidly unblemished, the tall Jasmine Brown leaned voluptuously on the banisters, saved from sheer nakedness only by a trifling arrangement of taut pale-green triangles. Even two of these were not enough to cover fully her two deeply assertive breasts, so that the glorious flesh of them stood out half-exposed, in vibrant splendour.
‘I’m Jasmine Brown.’
‘Oh! yes, they told me – they said something about – you know, you’d show me where to change.’
The Captain moved as if to go up the stairs but to his great consternation Jasmine Brown at that moment decided to sit down plumb in the middle of them, barring his way with legs curved in such a way that, in trying hastily to look away, he gave an undignified stumble and fell up a step or two.
Jasmine Brown laughed softly, in a voice of alarmingly seductive quietness.
‘Steady now. You’ve been having one of those Larkin specials. I know.’
‘No, no. I beg your pardon – forgot to introduce myself. Colonel – Captain Broadbent.’
‘Colonel or Captain?’ she said, in a voice of beautifully modulated inquiry, low and innocent, so that he found it impossible to look her in the face and found himself once again completely mesmerized by her legs, which she had now elegantly drawn up together.
‘Colonel,’ he half-muttered under his breath, his own voice now so low that it was doubtful if she heard.
‘Glorious, those drinks of his.’
‘Made me damned hot, if that’s anything. I’m dying to get into something cooler.’
‘Cool? You look marvellously cool. That’s a wonderful suit of yours. I love that colour.’
‘Really?’
The Captain, leaning with one hand on the banisters, preened his moustache with the other.
‘Stunning. And that shirt and tie. All looks spendidly cool.’
The Captain, though greatly flattered, made as if to advance another step or two upstairs but Jasmine Brown made no sign of moving to help him except to run her hands slowly up and down her legs with a sibilant whisper that was hardly audible even in the profound quietness of the summer afternoon.
‘You look so awkward standing there. Why don’t you sit down a minute? Come on.’ She patted the stair just below her calves. ‘Sit.’
‘I really ought to go and change –’
‘Oh! sit down. There’s oceans of time.’
‘I suppose so, but – well, one ought to play ball and all that. Not that I particularly want to swim –’
‘No. Why not?’
‘Damn bedlam out there. It’s like some ruddy awful circus. You can’t hear yourself think.’
‘And who,’ she said, again in that voice of lilting innocence, ‘wants to think on an afternoon like this? Not this girl, I’ll tell you. Come on, sit down.’
The Captain, who had held out firmly until this moment, now sat down on the stairs, only to find in the very same moment that she had slipped her body down one step nearer his.
In this increasingly intimate situation, not knowing what else to say, he bluffed:
‘I don’t mind telling you I damn nearly ran just now.’
‘Not from me I hope?’
‘No, no, of course not. From that rabble –’
‘If all I hear about you is true the last things you run from are women.’
‘Oh? Oh?’ he said with a hint of dark inquiry ‘Who’s been telling you this?’
‘Oh! friends.’
‘Friends, eh? Men or women?’
‘Both. I understand you make all the men blisteringly jealous and all the women, well –’
Bathed in intoxicating waves of flattery, the Captain could only murmur something about so that’s what they said, did they? Well, he supposed he’d had his moments –
‘I’ll bet you have. And still will, I hope.’
With an increasing uneasiness the Captain found himself caught full in Jasmine Brown’s deep, dark stare. Her large black eyes, liquid and hypnotic, held him relentlessly imprisoned for fully half a minute until in desperation he suddenly released himself and lowered his own eyes, only to find himself facing, a mere fifteen inches away, the full glory of her breasts, which seemed to rise and fall in invitation.
‘You know, I honestly ought to go and change –’
‘Don’t change. I love you in that suit. I really do. Stay here.’
The Captain again preened his moustache but nevertheless felt bound to point out that Larkin would be wondering where the hell he’d got to and after all there were the ethics of the damn thing. He, the Captain, was after all a guest.
‘Oh! the Larkins
never worry about things like that. Guests can do what they like here. Disappear to the woods. Play hide and seek. Sit on stairs. Any old thing. It’s all free and easy. You know of course that they’re not married?’
‘Good God.’
‘And that none of their children have ever been christened? A great scream, that – they’re going to have them all done next month. Wholesale.’
‘Are they, by Jove?’
This stupefied reaction expressed not only the Captain’s affront at the extraordinary habits of the Larkins but his own rising embarrassment at yet another move of her body. Her warm naked shoulder actually brushed against him as she tossed back her dark hair, no less glorious than the rest of her, so that he actually averted his face.
‘I love sitting on stairs and talking, don’t you?’ she said.
The Captain, suddenly overheated again, felt he would have given anything for a breath of air. It was getting pretty stifling. With discomfort he fidgeted on the stairs but all the encouragement she gave him was another long, bewitching stare, accompanied by the prettiest and most lustrous of smiles, her lips gently pursing and slightly pouting.
‘You know, I honestly think you’re trying to escape from me,’ she said, ‘aren’t you?’
‘Oh! no, no, no.’
Tired of my company.’
‘Oh! no, no, no. Dear no.’
‘Go if you want to. Hate to hold anybody against their will. Hate to. Especially you. With everybody after you.’
‘It’s just that I find it a bit hot – I mean, there’s no air –’
‘Let’s find somewhere cooler then. Shall we? The woods?’
The Captain hesitated about the woods. He sensed in the woods a trap far worse than the stairs. With what he hoped was an offhand gesture he swept a hand across his moustache and opened his mouth to say something even more trivial than usual when she said:
‘I know. I’ve got the nicest, coolest idea. The river. What about the river?’
‘You mean swimming?’
‘No, a boat. The Larkins have a boat. In fact, two. Do you row?’
Proud of this unexpected chance to reveal another side of himself, the Captain confessed that in fact he rowed rather well. But would Larkin mind?