I smiled politely and asked if they were on holiday.
‘You could say so. Got a bit of business to attend to in the south,’ said the other, ‘but thought we’d combine it with a spot of walking and sightseeing first. I was here in the war, you know. First time back. Be interesting to look at a few old haunts. Though things have changed of course – no more tanks and Jerries getting in the way.’ He laughed.
At that moment the boat gave a sudden lurch and the dominoes skidded to the floor but I was checked in picking them up by the sound of a child’s excited voice announcing that the town was in sight. I rushed to the porthole, eager as the child to salute dry land. We were indeed approaching the arms of the harbour, and already I could make out the buildings on the quay and in the distance the outline of the cathedral tower.
Disembarkation was what you might call leisurely, and the crawling pace as we edged nose to tail down the vehicle gangway did little to improve Ingaza’s recovery from his mal de mer. He slumped limply over the steering wheel, mechanically fumbling at the gear stick as might a sort of clockwork cadaver, groaning and muttering oaths at any official who impeded us – or for that matter waved us on.
As we made our slow way down to the quay, my attention was caught by a smart-looking Austin-Healey a couple of vehicles ahead. Sleek and low-slung, its silver-grey chassis made stylish contrast to the more homespun appearance of others in the queue. Of those only our vintage Citroën Avant was in any way distinctive, but whereas that vehicle had about it an aura of subtle menace, the Austin sparkled with breezy elegance.
Primrose too had obviously noticed the car, for she suddenly exclaimed, ‘Goodness, look who’s in that Austin-Healey. It’s the two I was talking to in the bar, Messrs Climp and … oh, I can’t remember the name, something like a fish or a window … Ah, yes, that was it, Mullion. Anyway, fancy them driving a make like that!’
I was also slightly surprised, for they had not struck me as the sort to ride about in high-powered sports cars – though admittedly such judgements are absurdly shallow. Primrose turned to Nicholas who, now that we had negotiated both gangway and officials and were moving more briskly along the quayside, was beginning to look vaguely human.
‘What do you think, Nicholas? Isn’t it odd that those two should be in a thing like that? They weren’t even good dominoes players.’
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ was the weary reply. ‘You may recall that I have been dying for the last three hours. In the circumstances my fellow passengers are of little account … Christ, I could do with a drink!’
‘It’s only ten o’clock. You’ll just have to wait.’ And she proceeded to tell him about her companions in the bar, while he manoeuvred us around the cobbled streets of Dieppe having missed the turn for the exit road south.
‘Useless signposts,’ he muttered, ‘give you no warning. We’ll have to go all the way round again.’ And performing an abrasive three-point turn he shot up the nearest side street.
‘Stop! Stop!’ I suddenly shouted, gripping his shoulder.
‘For God’s sake, Francis, you’ll have us all in the ditch!’
‘Yes, but you must stop, you really must!’ He swerved to the side of the road and braked violently, and I started to wrench at the handle.
‘Oh really, Francis, you haven’t been taken short, have you?’ protested Primrose. ‘Why on earth didn’t you go on the –’
I made no answer, being now out of the car and starting to race back the way we had come. I rounded the corner and stared. The street was empty except for a passing cyclist, crossbar draped with onions; and I felt a fool. Clearly the months of subterfuge were taking their toll and I was having visions … And then I saw it in a shop doorway: the dog, lifting its leg against a sack of vegetables.
‘Bouncer,’ I cried, ‘stop that!’
The creature lowered its leg and looked round guiltily, saw me and started to bay.
As always the noise was dire.
‘Shut up!’ I yelled. He stopped, and with head cocked on one side slowly began to wag his tail. There was no doubt about it, it was him all right – every mark and hairy feature. And even from a distance I could discern bits of the old green collar peeping out from the thicket around his scruff.
I approached cautiously, my mind a whirligig of confusion and disbelief. How? How? How? Why wasn’t he with the Watkins and the wolfhound? I had settled him there only three days ago, leaving him safe and smug sucking up to Florence. What on earth had happened, and how on earth did he get here of all places? In a daze I called him to heel (an order which for once he instantly obeyed) and together we walked slowly back to the car.
Not unexpectedly we were greeted with consternation and horror.
‘How could you, Francis!’ cried my sister.
‘Trust you to foul up the works. That’s all we need!’ echoed Ingaza.
They seemed to think I was somehow responsible and had engineered the whole thing. It took me some time to convince them otherwise. Then once the fulminating had subsided I suggested I try to ring the Watkins to find out what had happened.
‘You had better let me come with you,’ said Primrose. ‘You’ll never cope with the French telephone system on your own.’ I was grateful for that and we set off in search of a public phone box, leaving Nicholas to grumble at the dog.
With Primrose’s help the mechanics of connection went surprisingly smoothly and I was relieved to hear Diana Watkins’ voice at the other end. I was just clearing my throat to make diffident enquiry, when she broke in: ‘Oh Canon, I can’t tell you how sorry I am, the most dreadful thing has happened. I feel so ashamed. It’s, uhm … well, I’m afraid it’s Bouncer: he’s escaped – in a lorry!’ And she launched into a long and tearful explanation.
It was a curious tale, but knowing Bouncer’s habits I felt a measure of sympathy and could hardly blame his distraught custodian. Apparently she had been exercising the two dogs in the park, and because Bouncer was being so good had let him off the lead to frolic with Florence. All had gone well until she was approached by a fellow dog owner eager to chat. They had been talking for barely a minute, when glancing up she saw a very large pantechnicon parked in a lane adjacent to the park, and into which Bouncer’s stern was rapidly disappearing. Before she had a chance to do anything, the driver had walked round to the rear, slammed the doors and driven off. As the thing disappeared down the road all she saw was a foreign number plate, and its doors bearing the slogan: ‘Grinders’ Dog Biscuits – Only the Best’.
Between tears and gulps Diana made further apologies and said how much Florence was missing her playmate. I calmed her down, said that miraculously the fugitive was safe with me, and assured her there were no hard feelings. I think she went off to have a triple gin. I wished I could do the same, but that would have to come later …
Eventually, back in the car with the dog settled next to me and my companions grimly resigned to his presence, we once more traversed the town. This time we managed to find the right route and were soon out on the open road. We had not gone far when a lay-by came up on our right where there were a couple of British cars parked, a battered Humber and, apart from a patched tear in its hood, a pristine silver Austin-Healey. As we drove by I saw one of its occupants hunched over a map spread out on the bonnet. It was the taller of the two Primrose had introduced me to on the boat. The sighting prompted her to resume telling Nicholas of her encounter with them.
When she had finished there was a long silence. And then he said musingly, ‘Crowthorne … that’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?’ At the time the remark’s significance entirely escaped me, but later it became only too clear.
8
The Vicar’s Version
Despite the still heavy skies and tiredness from the recent rigours, now that we were actually in France, and unmolested by its Customs inspectors, I began to relax and enjoy the journey. I had not visited the country since a couple of times to Brittany well before the war. T
hen I was a boy, encumbered by shrimping nets and parents. I recalled that it had been my task to carry the lilo – a gigantic yellow creation which, to my father’s fury, I invariably managed to puncture. Pa spoke an ersatz French – loud, ill-pronounced and drawling – a source of cringing embarrassment from which Primrose and I had fled whenever possible. Apart from that and the disputes over the lilo, my principal memory was of the hotelier’s two pug dogs, sparky little fellows who answered to the names of Merde and Méchant.
Thus with so brief a memory and experience, it was pleasant to sit back and absorb the wide rolling countryside with its fluttering poplars, grazing dun-coloured cows, lime-washed farmhouses and ubiquitous grey church steeples. Now and again we would pass a wagon of turnips or be waved at by children in navy smocks and ankle boots. At one point I even saw a gaggle of geese being herded by a small girl as if she had stepped straight out of an Impressionist painting … Yes, I reflected, this was surely better than Mavis Briggs and her elevating Gems. I stretched, opened a fresh packet of humbugs and wondered if I might now be permitted to remove my collar.
After a while the paysage became more hilly and wooded, with a proliferation of narrow lanes and thick hedges, and I realized we were already immersed in the famed bocage. Fleetingly I thought of those lumbering Shermans and the skulking German Panzers … But before my imagination could take a firmer grip Nicholas exclaimed, ‘Oh hell, I’ve left the maps in my case. Not quite sure about the next bit, I’d better check.’
‘Good,’ said Primrose, ‘I could do with stretching my legs.’ He stopped the car and she got out, while he wandered around to the back.
I also got out, released the dog, and leaning against the bonnet lit a cigarette and watched a couple of thrushes as they fought over a worm. I was just taking my second puff when there was an anguished yell from the rear – ‘Christ almighty, I don’t believe it!’ I spun round just in time to see a dark shape streak from the open boot into the roadside undergrowth.
‘That’s your bloody cat!’ he cried. ‘Are you mad! What the hell did you bring that for?’ I stared dumbfounded at the tussocks of scrub where I knew Maurice to be lurking. There was a suspicious stillness: neither sound nor sign. But he was there all right, watching us, weighing things up, planning his next move.
‘I did not bring him,’ I hissed. ‘He must have jumped in somehow at the last moment.’ And turning back to the undergrowth, said in wheedling supplication, ‘It’s all right, old man, you can come out now. We’ll find you some nice haddock.’
Naturally there was no response, and apart from Ingaza’s imprecations there continued a fraught silence. I tried further coaxings but to no effect.
‘Well, if the little perisher won’t come out we’ll just have to go without him,’ grumbled Nicholas. ‘We haven’t all day to waste on your peculiar creatures – I suppose that damned wolfhound will appear next.’ I cast a nervous glance into the open boot, half expecting to see Florence’s shaggy hide, but mercifully it contained only suitcases and the surpliced whisky.
‘I think,’ I said, ‘that if we get back into the car and start the engine he may emerge – you know, sort of pretend we couldn’t care less.’
‘Some of us don’t,’ replied Nicholas grimly.
At that moment there was an anguished shriek from behind a tree where Primrose had repaired to answer a call of nature. ‘Christ, what’s that bloody creature!’ She emerged, straightening her skirt and looking distinctly flustered.
‘It’s all right, Primrose,’ I replied soothingly, ‘I think it’s Maurice.’
‘Maurice? You mean your cat? What’s he doing here – my God, that’s all we need!’
‘Precisely,’ I said drily. ‘Now be quiet and we may be able to catch him.’ I dropped to my hands and knees and started to croon his name enticingly.
‘Not that way,’ Primrose said irritably in a loud stage whisper, ‘he was behind that tree.’ She stooped down and started to peer into the bushes.
After a few minutes of fruitless searching, there was a call from Nicholas by the roadside. ‘Come on. Don’t hang about.’
‘But we haven’t found the cat –’ began Primrose.
‘You don’t need to, the bugger’s here.’
We scrambled towards the car. And there he was, sitting squarely on the bonnet grooming his whiskers. He gave us a cursory glance and then continued his task with dedicated attention. Regarding him intently from below, and surprisingly silent, sat Bouncer. I wondered why the dog hadn’t set up a hue and cry at the creature’s sudden appearance; but there’s no accounting for animals and I was in no mood to ponder the matter. Thus I marched up to Maurice, gripped him firmly by the scruff and, shoving the dog in ahead, resumed my position on the back seat. Here, comfortably ensconced on my lap, the stowaway gazed up impassively as I parried the grumbling brickbats from the front.
‘Well, that’s not going to endear us to any hostelry when we turn up asking for rooms plus a special boudoir for the cat and dog,’ said Nicholas testily.
‘No need to exaggerate,’ I replied. ‘There’ll be no bother. If necessary I’ll leave Bouncer in the car – he’s quite good like that, you know. And as for the cat, I shall simply carry him in under my arm with a nonchalant air. No one will say anything.’
‘Hmm – fine in theory, unlikely in practice,’ said Primrose. ‘I remember you trying to appear nonchalant as a boy – you simply succeeded in looking furtive and sinister.’
‘Tell you what,’ suggested Nicholas, ‘we could at least shove the cat into Primrose’s handbag, it’s big enough!’
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ she cried. ‘I’ll have you know this bag cost innumerable guineas from Bond Street. It’s not silk-lined and initialled just to be a cat-carrier!’ Despite her protests, it struck me as quite a good idea and not one to be immediately discounted …
There was a silence. And then Nicholas exclaimed, ‘But how on earth did he get himself into the boot at all? You must have had something to do with it, Francis. He couldn’t have hitched a lift in two cars unaided.’
‘I’ve told you,’ I protested, ‘I know nothing about it. You don’t think I’d want to bring him on this joyride, do you? And if we’re searched on the way home they will both have to stay in quarantine for months.’ I stared down in dismay at the bundle of fur on my lap, and it stared back with unblinking eye.
‘That creature moves like greased lightning,’ observed Primrose. ‘I saw him stalk and ambush a mouse once. Not exactly a pretty sight. But he’d got the whole thing down to a fine art all right. Mouse didn’t stand a chance … He obviously slept in your motor last night. And then when we were all jawing in the car park with the doors open and messing around with the bags, he must have slipped out, lurked under the chassis, and jumped into the Citroën’s boot at the last moment.’ She laughed. ‘I expect those absurd vestments were a godsend.’
Nicholas gave a whistle. ‘Little blighter!’
Conversation lapsed, and worn out by the traumas of the ferry crossing and the animals’ charade, I fell into a light doze.
I awoke with a jolt to the sound of a curse from the driving seat and an anguished protest from Maurice. We were on some minor side road overhung with trees and strewn with potholes, one of which the Citroën had clearly encountered.
‘Hell’s teeth!’ exclaimed Nicholas. ‘That was near, almost got the back axle.’
‘If you went a little slower,’ observed Primrose pointedly, ‘such hazards might be better avoided.’
There was a pause, and then he said mildly but carefully, ‘Unlike your Morris Oxford, this car was not built to be driven at hearse-like speed by octogenarians through the purlieus of Lewes and Eastbourne.’
She didn’t like that. ‘At least their owners don’t harbour delusions of being Fangio,’ was the tart response. ‘And if you imagine that –’
‘I say,’ I said brightly, ‘the sun’s come out over there. You can see it through the branches. Things are look
ing up – how about stopping for a coffee?’
‘Good idea,’ said Nicholas, ‘and then your sister will have time to check the tyres for punctures.’
I could not see from the back seat, but knew she would be growing pink and formulating some sharp put-down. I leant forward. ‘And tell you what, the first one to spot a café gets a digestif on me.’
‘Good Lord,’ exclaimed Nicholas, ‘you are in the holiday mood. Better make it two while you’re about it – we shan’t hear that offer pass this way again.’ And so saying, he accelerated (smoothly) and passed Primrose a mollifying Sobranie. For the next twenty minutes there was silence as they scanned the terrain with hawk-eyed intensity.
Eventually we approached a crossroads and a better surface, and taking the route south continued for another couple of kilometres until we reached a small hamlet which at first seemed to have nothing in it at all, not even a filling station. But as we rounded the bend, resigned to pushing on, Primrose suddenly cried out, ‘Oh, there’s something, look!’ On the edge of a tiny square there were a couple of zinc-topped tables, a battered umbrella and a tricolour waving wanly in the breeze. A lurcher lolled under one of the tables, and at the other a girl in pinafore and slacks sat engrossed in a book.
As we got out of the car, I heard Nicholas murmur to Primrose, ‘Remember – that’s two digestifs Francis owes you.’
‘Yes,’ she replied sweetly, evidently still smarting from his reference to her Morris Oxford, ‘one for me and one for him.’
He grimaced good-humouredly, and adjusting his scarf sauntered over to the girl. In fractured but theatrical French he asked for three coffees and a look at the carte des vins. The latter was sparse, listing mainly Stella beer and one or two local ciders. The appallingly bitter Cynar featured, as did the French version of Babycham. There were, however, three brands of pastis. Nicholas, with unctuous charm and fulsome gesture, tried to elicit which of the three could be recommended. But torn from her reading, the girl seemed unminded to discourse on their respective merits, remarking with a Gallic shrug that as far as she was concerned they were ‘tous la même chose’. As she ambled off to fetch our order I glanced at the cover of the discarded book: the title read J.P. Sartre et la Bêtise Anglaise. I placed it on the other table.
Bones in High Places Page 4