Fun And Games

9

Fun And Games

August 5 Not. Egg had warmly invited all Junior Drones down to his dad’s place for the summer hols., but before then—

    “Tennis?” I croaked, goggling at Flossie. “But you always despised games, at School!”

    “Still do, little chum,” he replied, looking down his nose at me. –There had been a time, now long since past, when he, Bean, Egg, Crumpy and I had all been approx. the same height. Nature can be dashed unfair. Also in allowing persons like F. (James) Nightingale, Esq., to take advantage of the fact.

    “Then why—?”

    Okay, it turned out that the august Chambers to which he aspired and by which he had now been accepted—provisionally, tho they apparently didn’t expect him to have failed his exams, so possibly they had their academic spies on the job—had had a pair of spare tickets which had graciously been awarded to him. Feebly I suggested that he take one of the other Junior D. girls instead but, still looking down the nose, he explained that they were incapable of attaining the requisite look. And he’d come home with me (we were having lunch at a rather undistinguished sandwich bar that apparently was favoured by the Chambers in Q., Flossie all over) and check out Mum’s wardrobe.

    So we went…

    And the subsequent proceedings went something like this: “No, you cretin! I thought it was claimed you had taste?”

    “Not by me, Flossie. Well, this?”

    “It’s black!” (screaming).

    Yes, and all crooked layers and raggy bits dangling off it and great bunches of mixed silk and, er, nylon? Well something of the sort, and very, very like the worst sort of dark, barely discernible photo in Vogue but not wool so presumably meant for summer? The sort of thing ditsy actresses trying to look half their age wear to go on chat shows.

    “Are you mad? For Wimbledon?” (still screaming).

    Okay, not for Wimbledon.

    “This? It is whi—”

    “You are not turning up in a tennis dress!” he snarled.

    “Oh, is it? Must date back to when she was chasing that chap that decided to chuck it in and go back to his dad’s factory, well I mean, the dad owned it but that didn’t cut the jolly old M. with Mum, so—”

    “Shut up! For God’s sake, get out of the way and let me have a look!”

    Okay, but he was in for a shock. Or two.

    After quite some time he said in a shaken voice: “According to Uncle Flossie you had by far the nicest hat at the bloody Derby and claimed it was one of Lady P.’s.”

    “It was. Did you assume she had taste on the strength of it?”

    “Uh—something like that,” he replied sourly.

    “No: what she does have is the nous to let chaps buy stuff for her. Well sometimes she just points and they cough up like lambs but quite often they choose the stuff and she wears it for as long as she wants to please th—”

    “I get it,” he groaned.

    “Well, go on, there’s lots in there,” I said, sitting down on the bed to wait it out.

    After a while he gave up and invaded my room, approving of some of the gear from Paris, tho not of the more flamboyant stuff that Pierre had insisted on forcing on me, but none of it was right for summer. Well this being England it could well be freezing but however. So he went back to Mum’s room. And finally chose it. An outfit, not a frock, technically, being composed of a loose open jacket over a sleeveless dress. White but with a small pattern of possible flowers so stylised one couldn’t have said definitely they were, in not quite red and not quite pink. Okay, it had style, did it, Flossie? Possibly not on me, but I duly got into it. It was too long but, he declared firmly, one of his aunts had an extremely reliable dressmaker who would take it up and all it would cost me was a visit to the aunt for a bridge evening.

    “What?”

    “You heard. She’s so rotten that no-one in her circle wants to play with her, but we’ll rope Uncle Flossie in if all else fails. And there’s a hopeless couple who play regularly, they may turn up, no-one wants to play with them, either.”

    Bridge? But I didn’t know how to play!

    “You said you’d played with a great-aunt in Paris, didn’t you?” he replied, fixing me with a steely eye.

August 7 Not. Continuing: Oh God, the elephant and Flossie Nightingale never forget. Well yes, I had played it at old Tante Émilie’s in Paris when I was staying with her during the (relatively brief) period when Grannie was convinced she was a fit person to look after me while I attended secondary school, and on duty visits to the old duck thereafter, only I’d never grasped any rules and was totally hopeless at it.

    That settled it. Bridge it was. And they were all so bad they’d never notice that I didn’t know what I was doing.

    Well card parties with Tante Émilie were bad enough and of course I’d spent some very boring evenings at the Château LeBec, but I can reliably report that a bridge evening with a nice English lady who knew an obliging dressmaker who’d do one’s alterations at the drop of a hat was the most boring evening of my entire existence…

    But at least, as it turned out, there were an unequal number there so I managed to spend most of the evening sitting out ignoring their confusing (and confused) bridge talk.

    Well what can one say? Bridge with an aunt had been a deadly evening, but professional tennis was equally deadly and even more… soul-numbing is the only expression, really. Uncomprehendingly staring as wildly, make that wildly and madly athletic figures GRUNTED, and LUNGED, and HURLED balls from their racquets and GRUNTED, and LEAPT after balls that it seemed to the uninitiate could possibly have been retrieved with less noise and less visible effort. And GRUNTED and in one instance hurled its implement to the ground and stamped off in a pouting fit… Well that bit was good, yes.

    And so the most energetic ones or possibly the loudest grunters seemed to win—it was all ladies against ladies and men against men, which did prompt the Thort, wasn’t that terrifically non-“p.c.” these days? Well they call actresses actors, don’t they? Tho come to think of it, they have separate competitions and trophies for the sexes in that job, too, so yes, the 21st Century is definitely mad and Egg was so right in deciding to stick with good old Bertie W. and friends in an era when grunting in sports was so far beyond the bally Pale as not to be even dreamed of.

    Flossie however was in his element, waving to this, that and the other, there is a horrid neologism for it… Networking!

    Ugh. Yes: that was what it was. After the first horrible day of it all, I rang the Egg and gave him the full report. He commiserated but did note that I didn’t have to go.

    “Mistaken sense of solidarity with an old chum,” I sighed.

    “Er—yes. How did he introduce you, or is that a tactless Q.?”

    “Well it’s certainly an apposite one, Egg. With the full hyphenated bit and the smiling assurance, the minute they looked like asking, that yes, I am Lady Patrizia’s daughter and I do have quite a look of her, don’t I? –Especially in her bally dress and hat, which of course he didn’t mensh.”

    The Egg, bless him, went into a sniggering fit but recovered to remark: “It’s more than the blighter deserves, Mel.”

    “I know. But I have known him for most of my life, after all,” I sighed.

    “Mm,” he agreed, I could hear the smile in his voice. “Well a short agony, old thing, tho I know it won’t feel like it.”

    “No. Um, Egg…”

    “Yes, old chap?”

    “They’re—they’re grotesquely athletic!” I burst out.

    “Yes,” he agreed simply. “Steroided to the eyebrows, gym work, training all day and every day, special diets, you name it. Might as well be robots, really.”

    He was so right! And as usual after a consultation with good old Egg, I rang off feeling much, much better.

August 9 Not. So next day, again in the requisite look, it was more of the same: GRUNTING and LEAPING, and running madly across the whatsit—what do all those white lines mean? And etcetera but I just thought firmly “Robots” and sat it out.

    A see-and-be-seen Personage duly presented whatever it was. And gee! After the trophies nonsense Flossie somehow managed to link up with one of the Top Men from Chambers and get both of us invited to a jolly country-house tennis party in a couple of weeks’ time!

    What? Oh no!

    Oh yes. But as he’d cunningly ascertained the fact that Club Romney’s would be closing for the summer by then, what could I say? No, I didn’t have any other pressing engagements and no, Flossie, that tall older chap that Crumpy claimed was  as smooth as an eel—thanks, loquacious Lucius (Crumpet) Lamont!—had not invited me to anything for the specific weekend, and in short that was to be my fate.

    … Country-house tennis, I can now report, is not as bad as Wimbledon tennis tho almost as silly (did Bertie W. ever actually play? I’d doubt it, frankly) but does have the virtue of being relieved not by the famed strawberries, no, but by tasty meals laid on by a martyred-looking (tho very smartly attired) wife who confided with a sigh that it was all catered, and the stone mushroom-like whatsits out the front were all fake but Jeremy (the husband) had insisted they have the right look and she knew the “horrible stuffy neighbours” all looked down on them as parvenus. Ouch! Well rather too many quick gins on a warm afternoon, yes, but poor woman, what a fate!

    … Which sort of prompted the Thort, would this also be the fate of whatever luckless maiden was eventually to marry F. (James) Nightingale, Esq., and if so, should I make a real effort to warn darling sweet Mireille right off him? Because really, it was too horrid to contemplate. Oh dear.

    Possibly my mood wasn’t helped by the fact that on the last day of this delightful rural wing-ding or knees-up, the host’s cousin turned up. Did I know—

    Christopher Eames.

    Gulp.

    I could see that Flossie was almost bursting trying not to laugh, but as he’d looked as astonished as I felt when the dashed chap walked in I didn’t think he’d known beforehand. And once I got him alone he swore he hadn’t, in fact he was quite indignant and said he might be many things which didn’t meet with my august approval but he wasn’t a dashed bounder. No, well. I suppose I believed him.

    Well of course Christopher has beautiful manners and tho he was surprised to see me there he didn’t look or say anything embarrassing, but was just his usual urbane, slightly languid self. By the time they were through with the introductions Flossie of course had recovered himself and was able to sling his arm casually across my shoulders with the remark: “Mel and I are old chums, sir; help each other out when one of us needs an escort, kind of thing.”

    Which frankly did not cut any ice with Christopher, and he looked very dry but refrained from speech.

    Later that afternoon I was as usual sitting on the sidelines while athletic figures dashed madly hither and yon waving their racquets, and he came and sat down beside me, murmuring: “Not playing, Mel?”

    “No: they’ve discovered I’m what they call a hopeless duffer, so they’ve stopped trying to make me.”

    “I see. Ah… May I ask which of you it was who needed an escort, you or young Nightingale?”

    “Flossie,” I said with a sigh. “He’s going to join Jeremy’s Chambers and I think he asked me because he knows I can be relied upon not to read anything into it like the scores of bimbos he always has chasing him. Well and partly because of my maternal grandfather,” I admitted with a sigh.

    “Uh-huh. And you were at Merrifield, weren’t you?”

    Er…

    “So was Marina,” he explained.

    Our hostess, he meant, Marina Hunter. Okay, it was evidently a recommendation. At least in Flossie’s eyes, and presumably in hers as well. Unless he’d made a mistake and she loathed the place and everything to do with it, but it wasn’t like F. Nightingale not to have verified his facts before taking action.

    “I went there, Christopher, yes, but I didn’t distinguish myself, except by not fitting in, and lacking School Spirit and Team Spirit and presumably just Spirit.”

    He laughed. “Got it! Amazing how they all take it seriously, isn’t it? As if one’s school days would never end and were the be-all and end-all of existence.”

    Well frankly at this I beamed upon him. “Exactly! All the Junior Drones feel that, it’s largely why they formed the club!”

    “Oh, of course! Your club! –Oops,” he added as apparently something happened on the Court. “Clap, Mel!” he hissed, his shoulders shaking.

    Oh. Righty-ho. I clapped.

    Flossie came over to us racquet in hand, panting and grinning. “Slaughtered!” he gasped, dropping down onto the grass beside our very traditional but rather new-looking deckchairs,

    —The whole house, incidentally, was like that. Flossie had privily explained, not to be commented upon publicly on pain of D., so to speak, that it had been the broken-down shell of a small Georgian manor which had been burnt out at some time in its history and Jeremy had bought the property very cheap, considering where it was, and instead of as expected razing the singed remains, had had every stone lovingly cleaned and replaced in its spot and a new roof put on and all the gaps, of which there were many, filled with the right sort of stone, and loads of plastering and etcetera. Plus yards of panelling for the interior, sourced variously from terrifically expensive “yards” which specialised in ripping out the insides of old houses about to be torn down and selling the results to upwardly mobile suckers (Flossie’s expresh.) for megabucks. Subsequently scouring the auction houses for likely-looking fake ancestors et al. Well not quite, he’d admitted under assault by a cushion, but elderly and not necessarily good paintings that looked as if they’d been in the family forever.

    Well yes, one did begin to see why poor Marina felt as if the neighbours were looking down their noses at them.

    “So did you win, Flossie?” I asked.

    “No; lost ignominiously!” he replied cheerfully, what time Christopher choked slightly.

    “Oh dear. Does one say sorry, in these circs., or would it be frightfully non-U?”

    “I think possibly one says cheerily ’Bad luck, old chum!’ or Bertie-ish words to that effect,” he replied airily.

    “I’ve told Christopher all about the Junior Drones, Flossie,” I warned.

    “Oh—right!” he replied, laughing; few things phase Flossie Nightingale. “Just don’t sound solicitous, I think would be correct, or très BCBG, so to speak. Incidentally, who was that très BCBG older chap Uncle Flossie and Egg saw you with at the Derby?”

    “Well if you’ve been gossiping with Egg you probably know already, don’t you?”

    “No: it was Uncle Flossie who spilled the beans, so to speak, and then I got on to Egg, but he did his dashed oyster act. –Well?”

    I refrained from glaring at the pest but it was a dashed close-run thing. “He’s a French wine shipper and he is très BCBG, you’ve inadvertently hit the nail on the head there. Oncle Fernand does business with him and he asked me to look after him. –I’m sorry, Christopher: this must sound like Greek to you. Um, you see, BCBG—”

    “Bon chic, bon genre,” he murmured in his usual unmoved fashion. “I’ve read the book.”

    “Really?” I cried. “The original?”

    “Yes. Well—not exactly my era: dates from the Eighties!” he said with a smile. “My mother picked up a copy when she and Dad were on holiday in France one year. Dad said she spent the holiday chuckling over the book instead of enjoying the scenery!”

    Well one would: good for Mrs Eames!

    “Curious coincidence,” drawled Flossie. Really dished, hah, hah!

    “Absolutely! I’ve never met anyone else who’d even heard of the expression,” Chrsitopher agreed. “And did you enjoy the Derby, Mel?”

    Very relieved to have the subject changed from anything relating to comparative ages, I replied that it had been super, and our horse won! Not reflecting until too late that possibly the use of the first person plural was not utterly tactful in the circs. Oh well.

    Luckily for me at this point Marina came up and Christopher gave her his deckchair and went off to play.

    “I trust you haven’t been too bored, my dear,” she said with a sigh,

    Ignoring Flossie’s coughing fit, I assured her that I hadn’t been bored at all, even tho I was a complete duffer, actually. It was a lovely warm day and altho I didn’t understand what was happening on the court half the time, it was fun to watch them rushing about.

    “Yes,” she said with a sigh. “Well I don’t play myself, but Jeremy’s keen and they all seem to play, at Chambers. –It is warm, isn’t it?” She fanned herself with her hand and Flossie politely offered to fetch us cold drinks, duly departing to do so.

    Naturally I was then put under interrogation as to how long I’d known him and etcetera. But I think I managed not to give the wrong impresh., stressing that altho he could come over as flippant he took his studies very seriously and was very keen on the law.

    “Good,” she said in a vague voice, smiling a tired smile. “Jeremy knows his uncle, of course…”

    Uh-huh. Contacts.

August 13 Not. Continuing straight on: She perked up a little when we were sipping the cold drinks—it was a tray of gin and lime, thoughtfully with the bottle there in case one felt like making it a gin and lime and gin, so to speak. Not like a Gimlet: a long, cold drink, but very nice all the same.

    “I believe you were at Merrifield, my dear?” she murmured.

    “Yes. Christopher mentioned you were, too.”

    “That’s right. I was wondering—well this will sound silly—but do you keep getting extraordinary emails from someone called Babs urging one to support all sorts of strange sporting things?”

    Omigod! The dreaded Babs Rowntree strikes again!

    Flossie took one look at my face and dissolved in sniggers, drat him.

    “Um, well, occasionally!” I gulped. “She was a terrifically sporty girl in my class. You know: the epitome of the jolly hockey sticks sort. Did you sign up for her alumnae newsletter, Marina?”

    “Maybe I did… Well of course Jeremy and I give to the Merrifield Scholarship Fund appeals, I mean, such a good cause and one likes to feel the money will be going to help disadvantaged girls…”

    “Yes of course,” I agreed quickly, smiling at her. “That’s the school’s official appeal, but Babs’s thing is nothing to do with that, it’s something she dreamed up herself. It would be about weird sporty stuff, that was all she was ever interested in. I think she probably got a lot of names and addresses off Miss Pinkerton.”

    “Good Heavens! Is she still there? She seemed as old as the hills in my day!”

    Yes well Marina was younger than her spouse but in her late thirties, I’d have said. I explained that Miss Pinkerton was now just about due to retire.

    “She must be,” she agreed limply. “Well I know she has my address, she always sends me a Christmas card… But I can’t imagine how— But of course the school has a note of my email.”

    Well yes, and Babs was always horribly determined. Help: if the Brain, i.e. our august Head, knew what she was up to, pestering Old Girls all over England—! In fact probably all over the world, come to think of it.

    “I’d just ignore anything at all from Babs in future,” I said firmly. “I do.”

    “Yes, all one can do, I suppose. There didn’t seem to be an ‘unsubscribe’ thing to click on.”

    No, there wouldn’t be. Flossie was sniggering again, so I said: “You can stop that, Flossie. Unless you’d like me to suggest to Babs that there are a lot of Old Marbledownians who sympathize with Merrifield’s Good Causes and I can start her off with a few email addresses?”

    “Help! Mercy!” he gasped.

    “Yes well: watch it.”

    He wiped his eyes. “Is there any way to stop the female?” he asked.

    “I wouldn’t think so. Well one could try sending her a Rude Message. Possibly telling her what to do with her jolly hockey sticks.”

    Nice Marina Hunter gulped. “I really couldn’t do that.”

    “No, of course not,” Flossie agreed sympathetically. Or possibly sycophantically.

    “I suppose I could contact Miss Swayne…” I said slowly. “She’s very sensible and she’s got loads of tact. She’d know how to stop Babs pestering people.”

    “The headmistress?” said Marina. “She has a very good reputation: you were lucky, Mel. It was old Miss Johnstone in my day: she was past it, really, poor old dear, and honestly, what with her and Miss Pinkerton… I’ve really regretted not having a better grounding in English literature. I must admit I’ve joined a book club in town—well, Jeremy thinks it’s a joke and he claims the members are impossibly petty-bourgeois, and perhaps they are, but they’re all very pleasant women, and at least no-one claims to be an intellectual, so we can all chat as equals.”

    At this point I perceived to my astonishment that the sophisticated Mr Nightingale was looking thoroughly shaken, so I quickly made sympathetic noises and asked her about her children, and she brightened and told me a lot about how they were getting on at their schools, etcetera.

    … “I just hope, Flossie,” I concluded as we drove back to London, “that you won’t squash your poor wife if she tries to join a blessed book club or—or do Open University stuff or something! And if that’s the sort of life you envisage for yourself you needn’t expect to see much of the Junior Drones!”

    “It isn’t—for God’s sake, Mel! I can see bloody Jeremy’s a social-climbing, up-himself shit as well as you can!”

    “Then why are you sucking up to him?”

    He looked sour. “It’s the way to get on. Doesn’t mean I have to be taken in by it.”

    “No? I can just see you in twenty years’ time in a faked-up ye old-ee house inviting the right people to horrible tennis parties!”

    “Rubbish; I intend to stick strictly to gentle games of croquet, à la your Oncle Patrice.”

    I had to swallow.

    “No, seriously: Uncle Flossie’s leaving his dump to me. Not that I want the dear old bird to pop off. As a matter of fact he’s got it all planned out: he converts a couple of the bedrooms into a small suite for himself, we have the main part of the house, the wife takes over as châtelaine, and the kids have free run of the garden—with the exception of old Jones’s sacred asparagus bed!” he ended with a laugh.

    “Help, is old Mr Jones still looking after the garden for Uncle Flossie?”

    “More or less, yes. Not the lawns, there’s a firm of contractors that Nunky’s at last been allowed to hire for them. But old Jones is still firmly in charge of the vegetable garden and the herbaceous border. –Which bloody Jeremy would only have to see to turn green as grass, I rather fancy!”

    “Maybe. Only if it matches his stone mushrooms.”

    Promptly Flossie collapsed in sniggers, gasping: “By God, yes! What a pseud.!”

    Yes well. Fingers crossed he won’t be tempted to go that way.

    … “An object lesson, Sister Bean,” good old Egg concluded. “One can only hope he’s taken it to heart.”

    Well quite!

    Summer of course signalled the End of Term for Bean Minor. Hurray! Yes, okay, Bean Minor, hurray, jolly good show, not only the end of term but the end of School, but did I really have to come to— YES! Okay, I did. So I promised, Junior Drones’ honour (his own: the Junior Drones as a whole disclaim all such Baden-Powellish stiff-upper-lipness) to attend The School Against the Rest Cricket Match. Since he was almost in it this year, only losing out on Twelfth Man to— Yes, all right, Bean Minor, I promise.—And Bean!—Er, yes, if I could get hold of him: he had finished his exams, but I might manage to catch him before he slid off like an eel so as Oncle Fernand couldn’t claim him on behalf of Grannie.

    The School’s Open Day would be after that and since it was his very last term the Beak (revered Head) would probably want to speak to me and Bean. Huh? “Yes, because you’ve been filling in for my parents!” he urged. “It’s Parents’ Day, really!” he reminded me.

    Oh dear. Bean Minor, darling boy, in less than five min. all that would be over and, as Christopher and I agreed very recently, school days are not the be-all and end-all— Never mind. The poor little chap hadn’t really ever had any parents to speak of, and to hear him saying “my parents” like that kind of broke my heart. Even if he was now well over six-foot with the voice to match! And there’d be strawberries and cream! he reminded me eagerly. Er—yes.

    The following thrilling event on the school calendar would be the Marbledown Rowing Regatta, which he wasn’t in, but nevertheless it was a sine qua non, aka one of the greatest yawns in history, unless one decked oneself in one’s second- or possibly third-hand genuine Worcester College (Oxon.) Boat Club blaz— And don’t DARE to wear anything silly! —Blazer. Bother. Okay, I promised.

    That would be it except for Prizegiving. Er… Undistinguished was about the word for the minor sibling’s academic career, and of course it had been horribly interrupted by the pandemic. Syllabus interruptus, in fact, as the brilliant F. Nightingale had misguidedly put it in front of the entirety of the Junior Drones. Followed in very short order by a vote for a chorus of boos. The boos had it. “Boo-ooo! Boo-ooo! Boo-ooo-ooo!”

    “Um, Bean Minor, darling, are you up for a prize, tho?”

    “Yes, Senior French. I did try to tell them what you told your lot, that it wasn’t fair, I grew up with it and of course I’ve just had two years with Grannie, but they wouldn’t listen. So they made me pick a book.”

    This precaution being the usual procedure at both Marbledown and Merrifield, they don’t want any hysterics from the disappointed in the middle of Prizegiving with Parents present, l merely asked: “And did you?” To which he replied: “Yes but it’s putrid: the Seniors’ choices are even worse than the Juniors’.”

    It was Candide. Yes well. Supposed to be cleverly ironic from the first line on, but such subtleties would pass right over the head of a seventeen-year-old boy, never mind he was just a couple of months off his eighteenth birthday: he was frankly about as innocent as the tarsome Candide in person ever was. What these terribly clever authors like M. V— never seem to grasp is that if you create a dead boring hero for your epic, no matter how witty your prose the overall effect will be DEAD BORING!

    However the other choices had been a vol. of Proust, gulp, or a coffee-table book (in English) on the wine regions of France! I choked slightly.

    “Yeah,” he said gloomily. “Maybe Oncle Albert will know a second-hand bookseller that’d buy it off me.”

    “Worth a try. You sure you want me to come and see you trot up for it?”

    “Yes, ’course! And Bean!”

    Oh God. Where was the blighter?

August 16 Not. Continuing straight on. I rang Oncle Albert. He thought Bean must still be down in Bordeaux, he’d been talking about maybe working for a wine shipper down there, to get to know that side of the business. He had been down before, he reminded me. Yes, well probably better than going off to Australia as, it may be remembered, had been mooted at one point. And Oncle Albert thought he must have forgotten to charge his phone.

    Well I was jolly annoyed with the blighter for Bean Minor’s sake, but it got worse. Just when I was thinking grimly I’d ask Egg to come to the Prizegiving at least, tho as it was a busy time of year for the stables I couldn’t possibly ask him to take a couple of days off for the other dashed things, Bean Minor rang me again.

   “I say, Mel, have you heard from Colonel Raice?”

    NO.

    I had to take a deep breath. “Not lately, no. Why?”

    “Um, well he promised he’d make it to the Match and Prizegiving, only I can’t get hold of him.”

    Fancy that.

    “I suppose he’s doing something frightfully hush-hush,” he concluded sadly.

    Yes, that or been kidnapped by crazed, take your pick, Arab, Afghan, Iranian or come to think of it, Israeli terrorists. Given that those were his language specialties. Well not Hebrew, but if he was caught looking suspicious in or near their territory… Stupid ass!

    Crumpy rang not long after that, so I had a good old moan to him and he sympathised fully and apologised all over again for not being able to come down with me: his father was about to drag him off to Bermuda and their tickets had been booked and someone over there was expecting them. So I assured him I wasn’t blaming him in the least.

    “Right. Well I’ll see you all some time in August,” he said glumly.

    “Cheer up, Crumpy, dear! Sun, sand and bikini-clad lovelies!” I reminded him with a laugh.

    “And Dad making a complete fool of himself,” he reminded me.

    Er—this was true. Well he always had so far, why would he suddenly change his spots? I advised him to keep his mind firmly on the horses and the general atmosphere of just good, plain, old-fashioned common sense that both Egg and Mr Ovenden seem to radiate, as it were. And he agreed he’d try, and rang off mournfully.

    And that was that for older-male support for Bean Minor. Given that Flossie was persona non G. down at Marbledown, after he’d told them where to put the unexpected prize they’d tried to give him in front of the whole School. –They have these things for the Seniors in their last year, given without warning, unlike the class prizes and sports prizes. It was quite a lot of money, but as he’d pointed out, he didn’t need it, it should go to someone who did. Well good for him, he does have flashes of decency.

August 18 Not. The great day of The School Against the Rest Cricket Match duly arrived—like death and taxes, quite. So I went. Bean Minor was thrilled to see me and actually gave me a big hug, unasked. Tho dished that dashed Col. J. Raice hadn’t turned up. But he had sent him an email! he assured me brightly.

    What? He certainly hadn’t sent me any such thing!

    He had it on his smart phone (which incidentally was courtesy of John himself, that time he discovered that none of us, alone of our peer group, possessed one).

    “Sorry can’t make it to Match, all the best, J.R.” Specific, if not enlightening.

    Unfortunately there was no terrible thunderstorm or even a passing shower, so we went down to the field, where Bean Minor tenderly ushered me into a deckchair as if I was his dashed ancestor. Oh well. And we prepared to watch the mighty conflict…

    Well it was as boring as expected, tho there was a delirious moment or two. Sadly not enough to compensate for the rest. Marbledown’s idea of a lovely lunch obtainable from the lovely lunch tent didn’t help but then one had encountered it before. Why are les Anglais besotted with hard-boiled eggs? The cream buns were of course a great treat, long anticipated by the boys. Ugh!

    During the um, not interval, the bit when they’re not out on the field standing around in the hopes someone will bat—is that the verb?—will bat a ball their way, Bean Minor’s great friend Trelawney, who was actually in The First Eleven! (well eleventh man, but jolly good) came and laid himself down beside him on the grass at my feet. Not worship, no, but because (a) there weren’t enough chairs to go round and (b) it’s more manly. This young gentleman used to be Trelawney Minor but one can’t be that when one’s a Senior. Trelawney’s older brother must have been only a bit older than Bean so I asked kindly what he was doing, thinking he’d probably had time to finish his degree and maybe had gone into the Diplomatic like their father but no: Sandhurst, and now (I quailed) he was out in Aden. What? “You know, Mel!” Bean Minor prompted me. Er… Brief joggers lesson followed. Oh. So they have the British Army there, do they? Yes! Huge but tolerant scorn from both. Help.

    Manifestly Trelawney’s parents hadn’t made it this year, not that to my knowledge they ever had, so I asked if they were still in Malaysia. No: reposted. Brazil. Which could have been interesting if they’d been in Rio but the capital was Brasilia and his mum was bored to death and his dad said it was a nightmare of modern architecture fit only for modern architects: calculated to make one feel the size of an ant and you could say this for KL, it might be a humid hellhole but at least it was marginally human! Cor. So—cautiously—could he expect to see them this Christmas?

    No, Mum had made Dad promise to take her to Aspen for the skiing. Well true, this was par for the course. According to Bean Minor the unfortunate Trelawney had spent all of his School Christmases either still incarcerated or at pals’ forbearing parents’ homes.

    It was ages before the chum had his turn at batting. As he trudged off with his leg pads and bat, Bean Minor looked round cautiously. The assembled multitude was safely ignoring us and had its eyes glued to the Pitch or in some cases its watches or in other, feminine cases, to the fashion mags prudently stashed in the carry-alls. So he explained in a lowered voice that Trelawney had made the team because he was left-handed. Er… Much corroborative detail followed but I gathered that Trelawney had a certain prowess as a bowler, and this disconcerted the opposition. As well as being a left-handed batsman, y’see, only he wasn’t much of a one— Oh, bad luck!

    “Is that It, then?” I asked hopefully as those standing round on the field headed for the sidelines and Trelawney’s opposite number waved his bat at the clapping crowd and trudged off the field, followed by the said Master T., not waving his bat.

    What? No! Now it was the Rest’s turn to have their second— Oh God. I stopped listening.

    … “You remember Stephenson! –Mel! You remember Stephenson!”

    Er… tall, fair-haired, very good-looking, very pleasant smile, I certainly ought to remember him. About Bean’s age? …Oh!

    “Yes of course! Stephenson! You were in the School Team the year Bean—I mean, Michael, Tommy’s older brother, finished school! And Tommy showed us your study! How are you, Stephenson?”

    He assured me that he was very well thanks, and there was no need to call him Stephenson, his name was Geoff—grinning. And might he join us?

    Well was I going to say No? So he sat down on the grass rather close to my deckchair. And was very interested to hear that Michael had just finished his degree in horticultural science with a major in viticulture. His degree had been held up, too, he explained, making a face. Engineering: he had a fancy for building bridges. Well his uncle was in that line. He wanted him to do his Master’s but that was another couple of years of grinding away at the books, he couldn’t face it, so this year Uncle Lars had agreed he could join him on the site! It was such an unusual name that I asked if the uncle was Swedish, discovering that he was actually Australian by birth but his and Geoff Stephenson’s mother’s parents were Swedish. Which did help to explain why he was so blond, tho I had seen Swedes with just ordinary brown hair. I expected the uncle’s current project to be in some place like Dubai but no, it was back home in Australia: building a new bridge to replace an old one in some obscure country area.

    “I say!” beamed Bean Minor. “Michael’s thinking of going out there!”

    What? Not again! “I thought he was in Bordeaux with a wine merchant,” I sighed.

    “Only to get away from Grannie,” the minor sibling replied tersely.

    “Oh.” My gaze wandered to the field. “Hang on: isn’t that Trelawney going over to throw the ball?”

    “To bowl!” he snapped, nevertheless diverting his attention. “Yes! Come on. Trelawney! Show them a thing or two!” he shouted.

    Oh dear. Fingers crossed…

    Heaven was merciful for a change and Trelawney got a man out! Huge excitement, great applause… It turned out, Geoff explained in a lowered voice, as Bean Minor’s attention became fixed on the game, that the School was losing rather badly. And they had really needed to get that chap out, he was from Named School and slated for First-Class Cricket. But once they’d grasped a fellow was a left-hander, the other side did tend to get the measure of the bowling— Uh-huh.

    So the thing finally came to an end, with cheering-up back-pats for Our Side and consoling words such as “Jolly good show, considering” and “You did your best, old son”, and such-like.

    Phew! I’d never have to watch cricket again!

    Geoff then asked very nicely how I was getting back to town and Bean Minor explained hurriedly that I’d come down by train and of course the School had laid on buses to and from the station. Immediately Geoff offered me a lift. Immediately I accepted. Well wouldn’t anyone? Given he was charming, good-looking and obviously not unimpressed by one’s poor self?

    Trelawney thought approvingly that I’d be safe with Stephenson! Bean Minor, innocent tho he still was, did know me rather better, so he drew me aside while Geoff was shaking hands with various School personalities and Old Boys and hissed: “Don’t you dare disgrace yourself with him!”

    “Who, Little Me?” –Laying a hand to the heart and fluttering the lashes.

    “That’s what I mean!” he hissed angrily. “Don’t think Bean hasn’t told me about all those creeps you’ve being going round with! Stephenson’s a decent chap: he doesn’t need you fouling up his life!”

    Gulp. I didn’t try to say he didn’t understand—tho given he wasn’t bad-looking himself he’d soon find out—I just said meekly that I’d be good, and unthinkingly kissed him on both cheeks, French-fashion.

    ‘You’re in England now,” he reproved me.

    Unfortunately, I was beginning to feel. “I’ll see you at the next wing-ding.”

    “Open Day,” he reminded me sternly.—Ugh.—“So wear something decent!”

    I was! I would! I’d promised at least sixteen times! I promised for the seventeenth, and escaped.

August 21 Not. The roads were very busy, it was getting dark, and Geoff knew of a nice pub with a decent restaurant… So we stopped off for dinner. Well it was rather on the little-gourmet-piles side, but what was in the piles was well cooked. Of course they offered a cheese board or dessert, but I was getting used to that, so as Geoff knew they did a decent Stilton here we tried that. Mm, great! Almost as good as Roquefort! After which we found a comfy sofa in the lounge bar and had coffees, and would I like a liqueur? I voted for a brandy. Not bad. Over the tipples Geoff told me quite a lot more about his plans for Australia, and how Uncle Lars had said they had some jolly fine wines out there and you know, Michael could do worse than get a bit of solid working experience… Well yes, the Bean had said as much at one point, so altho this was getting rather pointed, so to speak, I agreed he could. And, Geoff ventured, could he possibly see me in town? Well he was seeing me right now, wasn’t he? as I pointed out with a giggle. At which he got rather encouraged and pressed his thigh more firmly against mine and said yes but he’d like to see more of me. So I said that’d be really nice, with somehow another giggle getting in there, and then he got really daring and said in my ear: “Could we possibly start tonight?”

    Well that did it. I mean I had had slightly more than my share of that quite palatable Californian white he’d chosen, and it was a double Cognac, and he was very good-looking and definitely not old, tho I did know that was not in itself a recommendation, but I didn’t think he was entirely inexperienced… So I agreed: “I think that would be entirely possible, Geoff!”

    And he hurried off to see if they had a room, which they did, so we went up to it. After which he proved very satisfactorily that he certainly wasn’t inexperienced: ooh! Re-proving it in the morning: Ooh, gosh!

    A trifle unfortunately Mr Prosser was on duty in the lobby later that morning (which his job does not entail) as Geoff politely saw me in. “Who’s this one, then?”

    “Good morning to you too, Mr Prosser!” I replied with a giggle. “This is Geoff.”

    “Thought you were dahn at yer little brother’s cricket match?”

    “I was; so was Geoff! He’s an Old Boy cricketer!” I explained.

    “And the rest. –Yer mum rung up, she was real pissed you weren’t in, so she rung me.”

    “What on earth did she want?”

    He sniffed. “Somethink abaht not nicking ’er fur coat on pain of death. Think she’s forgotten what season it is this side of the equator.”

    “Um, I thought she was— Isn’t Guadeloupe on our side of it?”

    Another sniff. “Could well be. Nah, she’s orf in Sarf Africa. Snaps of the jungle.”

    “Yes? Then Kew can expect her at any moment.”

    He gave an evil chuckle and nodded agreement.

    “Well thanks, Mr Prosser. If it happens again you can tell her I wouldn’t touch her fur coat with a bargepole, if you like. It looks like a dead yak.”

    He sniggered slightly but said stolidly: “Yeah. I’ll take you up. –You better move yer car before the cops come back, mate;”—to Geoff—“they been keen rahnd ’ere this week.”

    Which sort of took poor Geoff off with his cloak over the jolly old physiog., so to speak. But he assured me he’d got my number, as he went.

    And Mr Prosser and I went up in the lift to the accompaniment of one of his sniffs and: “Got your number? The poor young sod don’t know the ’alf of it!”

    Well really!

August 22 Not. As I’d worn the Wimbledon outfit to the Match I thought I’d better not appear in it again for Parents’ Day, sorry, Open Day, which consisted largely of Belongings (a Marbledownian saying) standing about on the lawn whilst Boys were supposed to fetch strawberries and cream for them. So I wore a different outfit. And Bean, thank the Lord and all the Archangels and ordinary Angels and Saints and whatever else they have, is it cherubims? Tho I think the Hebrew plural would merely be cherubim without the S, wouldn’t it? But I’m sure I’ve heard Miss Pinkerton read something out of an English religious text that had the S— As I say, Bean actually turned up for it! Looking lofty and asking what the Dickens I’d been panicking for, drat him.

    Tho rather unfortunately Bean Minor thought the outfit was overdone, and he hated the hat. Bother. True, the lot had been Mum’s, but there were very expensive labels inside both— Oh well. I’d tried.

    As rumoured, the respected Beak did want to speak to Bean and me. So we followed the panting messenger to his lair. He turned out to be, as Egg had once insisted, an intelligent, sensible, understanding chap. About Tommy’s future.

    Help. Bean and I exchanged uneasy glances.

    He—er—didn’t seem to want to go on with his French.—What? No, of course he didn’t, the man couldn’t be as sane as the Egg had claimed!—In fact he (revered Beak) didn’t think that he was cut out for anything in the literary line. Er… he had no wish to pry, Michael, but, er, the family business? Poor Bean swallowed hard and explained that tho both he and Bean Minor were very keen, there was no point in working for Château LeBec at the moment, as our grandmother wouldn’t listen to any opinions but her own. Not that it wasn’t a traditional trade, of course, but there were barrels and vats that would need replacing very, very soon, and that sort of thing, and new markets that might be investigated, and she just wouldn’t hear of it, sir! He saw. And he hoped he wasn’t being tactless but might he ask how old our grandmother was?—Bean admitted she was eighty-six now, but still as fit as ever.—Yes, well realistically we could expect things to change at the Château LeBec within the next ten years, couldn’t we? But meanwhile… A course in oenology for Tommy?

    Bean and I exchanged glances and I admitted: “Well he’s fairly well up in it anyway, but it probably would be best. Um, tho if he went to the Université de Bourgogne, um…”

    “It’s too close to the château, sir,” Bean explained glumly.

    ‘I see,” the Beak said kindly. “Another French university, then?”

    Oh God, he didn’t understand! They were all fiercely regional, naturally! Feebly we agreed we’d look into it, and were allowed to shake hands and totter out.

    “Les Anglais,” the Bean concluded bitterly.

    “D’ac.”

    “If only the old bag would pop off!”

    I squeezed his arm consolingly. “Mm.”

    He took a deep breath. “Look Mel, you won’t like this, but seriously, what about Australia for Tommy? –Don’t fly off the handle, think about it! Lewisham is keen for me to go out there and if we both go at least he wouldn’t be struggling on his ownsome in a strange country. And South Australia has a well-established course.”

    Gulp. I could see his point… But Tommy off at the other side of the world? A tear crept down my cheek before I could stop it, drat.

    “Don’t,” he said with a sigh. “We can’t let Grannie get her claws into him, Mel!”

    No. Well it did seem the best solution. We agreed not to mention it yet, and returned to the lawn and the strawberries and cream and tried to look cheerful, and fortunately the junior sibling didn’t seem to notice anything amiss.

    But Australia? Our little Tommy at the other side of the world? For a whole degree course? It’d be at least three years! I couldn’t bear it!

August 24 Not. As might be expected I wasn’t in a very good mood after this and as all I had to look forward to in the immediate future was the putrid Marbledown Rowing Regatta and then Prizegiving without John, the mood didn’t improve. Both Christopher Eames and Geoff Stephenson were very keen, and did their best to offer cheery jaunts, lovely lunches, nice little dinners, maybe a trip to the country, find an interesting little pub? I finally gave in and agreed to have lunch with Geoff.

    Well it wasn’t a total disaster but that was entirely owing to the good manners of the gentlemen concerned. We had a window table in a very nice restaurant, the sort that makes one wonder frantically what one’s young escort is living off and can he really afford this, and Geoff had spotted someone he knew on the other side of the room, so if I wouldn’t mind— And he popped off to speak to this chap. And I was just sitting there staring idly out at the Passing Scene, when Lo! an amused male voice said: “Mel, darling: not deserted again, surely?” And I jumped ten feet where I sat and Christopher grinned down at me and said—just as Geoff was approaching—“Shall I rescue you again, sweetheart, and then take you home for one of our delicious afternoons?”

    Oh help.

    Well if my face was puce poor Geoff’s was about the shade of a well-ripened tomato. And he said hoarsely: “Actually, she’s with me.”

    The smooth Mr Eames’s mouth was actually seen to tighten for a moment, oops. But all he said was: “I see. Well one doesn’t wish to be de trop. I’ll ring you, Mel.” And strolled off.

    Geoff sat down again, looking grim. After a moment he said: “Who was that chap?”

    Unfortunately—being rather thrown, as it were—I replied flippantly: “Well he wasn't my uncle.”

    “I think I gathered that.”

    “His name’s Christopher and he’s into Commodities. And he frequents nice restaurants and likes opera, and he’s got a cousin who’s an eminent barrister with a fancy house in the country where they have tennis parties. That’s all I know, really.”

    “I see.”

    I took a deep breath. “Geoff, I am entitled to a life.”

    “Yeah. And it is the 21st century. –How the Hell old is he, anyway?” the poor lad burst out.

    “I don’t know, one can’t ask these things outright. In his late forties, I suppose.”

    “Right. So are my parents.”

    I had to swallow. Come to think of it, Mum would be… Help. Forty-seven? Um, yes. Dad was a lot older, of course, but somehow that didn’t help.

    “Yes,” I said heavily. “I dare say. Are we going to order lunch, or would you rather give the whole bit away?”

    “No, I— Sorry. It’s entirely your business, after all. Of course you must have your lunch.”

    So we had lunch, but it wasn’t precisely a merry meal.

    When I got back to the flat I had a burst of tears but Bean was most unsympathetic and in fact said it served me right and tho Stephenson had always been a trifle on the Hearty side what with his dashed cricket, he was a very decent sort and I should bally well drop him for his sake and think about someone else’s feelings for once in my life! Words to that effect. And if I wanted to know—I didn’t—chaps got very fed up very quickly with stupid girls who mucked them about playing stupid little games! So I chucked my handbag, correction Mum’s handbag at him and retired to my room.

    … Well bother.

    The sky not having opened to swallow me up, it has a habit of not doing so, no pity at all for us human ants, I had to accompany Bean to the Marbledown Rowing Regatta. The School has always been famous for its rowing, and they have the oar-shaped plaque, I kid you not, in the front hall to prove it, with the names of illustrious Oxford and Cambridge rowers on it. Blues, one and all. That should be Oxford or Cambridge, on thinking it over, but one gets the general drift. Illustrious chaps long since dead and gone. Or in the case of the more recent, keenly standing on the bank bellowing encouragement at the various Eights and Fours. Coxed or not, we’ve long since had that one clarified. The dashed place caught poor Bean Minor too young, is what. If only Flossie had come with us in his ancient Cambridge half-blue blazer! But Bean had grimly vetoed that, Bean Minor wouldn’t think it was funny. So—typical Flossie—he’d shrugged and said in that case there was no point in coming at all and he wished us joy of it.

August 26 Not. Continuing. The regatta was all that one had expected of it. Damp feet while one shivered on the bank in the English summer, wishing that one had given in completely and worn Mum’s yak.

    Bean Minor’s attention was of course on the manly contest, to such an extent that it never dawned that Bean’s annoyance with me was possibly not on account of such remarks as “Oops, was that supposed to happen?”

    And the rowers sweated and strained, the onlookers bellowed encouragement or contumely, races were won or lost, innumerable crabs were caught—“Oh, bad luck, old chap!”—and a good time was not had by all.

    Then practically the minute we got home Christopher rang and asked me if I was free for the Henley Regatta! What? But he sounded almost propitiatory, perhaps he’d decided that just in case young Geoff was a serious contender he’d give him a run for his money, or that he was going to show me that extraneous youngsters—such as both Geoff and Flossie, come to think of it—didn’t count, or some such. Well anything would be better than staying at home with dashed Bean looking down his nose at me, so as Christopher assured me it wasn’t just rowing races, and he’d make sure there was some decent champagne in the offing, I agreed to go.

    This Henley place is very near London, I discovered, and the river in Q. is the jolly old Thames, and the Regatta’s been going for— Yes. Well be that as it may there was certainly a HUGE crowd there. To the point of near-invisibility of the actual events, as it were. And the river seemed to be entirely cluttered with boats of all sorts, some of them with sails. To the point of near-impossibility of the actual events, one would have said.

    Honestly! How was one expected to see anything with such a throng? All very well for Christopher to say: “Oh, look!” And: “See over there—?” and such like, but I was a lot shorter than him!

    In fact there was such an enormous crowd it was a wonder the jolly old bank of the jolly old River T. didn’t give way entirely and precipitate the lot of them into the drink, and I began to feel rather strongly that it was an awful pity that it wasn’t doing so.

    After quite a while of this and a fair amount of excitement from the crowd, tho I couldn’t see why, Christopher looked at his watch and suggested it might be time for a bite of something, which my tummy had been telling me for ages, actually. And he knew some people who had a house just a little further up—well, not the best view, he had to admit: one got the tag ends, more or less, but they always managed to make a fun day out of it, and would I like to—?

    Would I! I didn’t care if these friends were Count Dracula and King Kong, the thought of an actual house and a real loo and being able to sit down, and a real lunch was just glorious! I think he was slightly taken aback when I beamed at him and said: “That sounds scrumptious, Christopher!” but anyway he smiled back and said: “Good! Come on, then!”

    And we fought our way out through the crowd and managed to find the car, quite a feat, and he managed to extricate it, quite a feat, and off we went!

    It was a large two-storeyed house, “stockbroker Tudor”, i.e. about the era of Uncle Flossie’s country lair. With the fake black beams to prove it. The host and hostess were obviously well away already, jolly good, and greeted us with cries of delight and of course I must come upstairs and freshen up—thank God! And they were having lunch down on the lawn, completely informal, darlings, lots of lovely Fortnum’s hampers—ooh, Champagne, Christopher? You are a dear! Super! And etcetera.

August 27 Not. Continuing. So we duly repaired to the lawn, which did overlook the river, on which there were some boats and things coming and going—ooh, that one was a punt, shades of Oxford and the Junior Drones not watching the official races, not to say of much earlier ventures in the ancient punts that live on the bank of the much smaller river near the Eggs’ parents’ place.

    And Champagne duly flowed, a considerable amount of it in the direction of me, the boats came and went, the yummy cold chicken and cold duck and the jolly old pâtés, not bad at all, and the Stilton, ditto, definitely went, and a rattling good time was had by all.

    Tho none of us could have said afterwards who or what might have won what at the bally old Henley Regatta that year!

    Prizegiving at Marbledown expected an audience of the whole School plus invited guests, there not being enough room in the Hall to accommodate the thousands that would of course turn up if numbers were not restricted. The optimistic young Bean Minor had booked seats for me, Bean and John Raice, oh dear. So I rang John’s number yet again, by this time I not only could have done so in my sleep, I was actually doing so, and would wake up all sweaty and desperate, curse him.

    “Not here at the moment, sorry. Email me and I’ll try to get back to you.” I was so angry that my hands were actually shaking but I emailed the blighter all right:

    “WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU JOHN? TOMMY’S EXPECTING YOU FOR P-GIVING! –M. F.-B.”

    To which I got the usual automated reply: “Sorry but I can’t get back to you just now. All well. J.R.” Oddly enough at that point I threw myself on my bed and cried my eyes out.

    After a bit a bored voice said from the doorway: “What in blazes have you done now?”

    “NOTHING!” I screamed. “Get OUT, Bean!”

    Not getting out, the sibling replied, unmoved: “If one of them’s dumped you you’ve only got yourself to bl—”

    “NO!” I shrieked. “It’s blasted John Raice! I still can’t get hold of him and he’s going to let poor little Tommy down!”

    “Rats. In the first place, Tommy’s not little any more, and in the second place, of course he’ll turn up.”

    “He WON’T! And I HATE HIM! And GET OUT!”

    Shrugging, he got.

    Well one might have thought in the short time left before we had to get down tio Marbledown again nothing drastic could possibly happen. Only of course it did, Fate had it in for me.

    Uncle Flossie had taken Bean and Flossie for a boys’ night out incorporating dinner and a visit to the gambling club that Mr Lamont favoured, ostensibly so as they could suss out Oncle Albert’s competition, but actually because he liked a little flutter, and I’d invited Christopher over for drinks before dinner. So when Mr Prosser rang through and said lugubriously there was a bloke wanting me and he’d been here before but was I expecting him I just laughed and said of course I was and to send him up. And there duly came the knock on the door and I flew to answer it—

    Gulp. Geoff Stephenson with a huge bunch of roses. Smallish, rather tight pink ones, I had at one point incautiously admired the sort in a florist’s when we were taking a lovely walk in the sun in order to snigger at the Gherkin before having a lovely lu— Um, yes. Pink roses. Huge bunch. Too huge to just say “How lovely” and send him on his way. Limply I invited him in and after I’d put the bunch down on the Queen Anne rosewood coffee table he hugged me very tight, pressing firmly against me, in a way which at one point, quite some time back, I had assumed was merely typical of that age but by now knew was typical of all keen chaps. And reminded me he was off to Australia in a couple of days, which of course he had to spend with the parents, but—

    Oh help. Well actually it was rather too early yet to expect Christopher so I sat him down on a sofa and gave him a drink as a sort of um, delaying tactic or something, meanwhile trying frantically to think but only coming up with Oh help.

    And I had perforce sat down beside him and after a bit the empty glass in my hand no longer deterred him and he was getting distinctly passionate, really, when the phone rang again. Mr Prosser. Another bloke, old enough to be my dad but he had been here before so he’d sent him up and if there was any more tonight he’d start charging admission. Before I could even say “Very funny” and hang up there was a tap at the door.

    And Geoff looked very taken aback and said: “Were you expecting someone?”

    Well do I usually put on a very nice dress and a lovely pair of shoes, genuine recycled vintage Louis Jourdain scored in a Paris op shop, and luckily too big for Mireille, absolute Heaven on the feet, for an evening at home?

    “Yes, we were planning a drink and dinner,” I admitted as the knock sounded again.

    “That chap from the restaurant,” he discerned sourly. “Well go on, let him in.”

    So I went over to the door…

    “Étienne!” I gasped. “Qu’est-ce tu fais à Londres?”

    Rather luckily the all-too-explicit reply to this was in French and before I could move he’d laid down his enormous bouquet of palest yellow gladioli—I know some people laugh at them but I love them and had incautiously admired them in a florist’s one day when we were strolling vaguely towards the Strand in quest of lu— Um, he’d laid the lovely yellow bouquet on a 1930s rosewood Queen Anne side table and was kissing me with huge enthusiasm, meanwhile pressing his front to mine in the usual unmistake— Quite.

    Then he supposed nicely, still in French, that this must be my brother, hein?

    Ugh. “Non, non, il est pas mon frère. –This is Geoff, he’s a friend, Étienne,” I said in strangled tones, as poor Geoff, very, very red in the face, stumbled to his feet.

    Étienne laughed, and made the noise that les Anglais translate as “Ooh, la, la,” which isn’t it at all, the French “O, là, là” consists of a series of back vowels and is entirely different. It has nothing to do with anything improper such as scantily-clad bimbos as les Anglais think, but is often used to express consternation, typically of the ironically amused sort, which was certainly how Étienne was using it. Its import, however, was quite unmistakeable and Geoff was just beginning in a strangled voice: “I’d better go—” when the dashed phone rang again!

    “Do ya want another one? It’s Mister Smoothy, he’s been here before too and if I don’t open the door ’e looks the sort that’d make real trouble for a poor working bloke. And enjoy every minute of it.”

    Wincing, I replied: “Go on, then,” and hung up.

    Meanwhile Étienne was laughing again and apologising, all in French, and saying that of course he should have phoned first but he was so eager—more laughing— Which on due consideration was probably better than going all frosty and BCBG, but probably was making it worse for Geoff. So the poor lad, saying grimly: “I’ll go, Mel. You’ve got my email if you feel like getting in touch,” went over to the door—

    And opened it to find Christopher standing there with a huge bunch of dark red roses, at one point I’d incautiously admired the very dark red, velvety— Um, yes. He had a splendid view not only of the red-faced, ruffled Geoff but also of the smiling Étienne just in the act of kissing me fervently in farewell on both cheeks and a third for good luck, which is normal to the French but not to les Anglais. And of course of the large floral offerings of both gents.

    “Oh dear,” the said Christopher drawled. “I am de trop.”

    Geoff glared at him and retorted: “Not actually, I think she’s expecting you.”

    “Uh-huh. –Floral, isn’t it?” he drawled, surveying the scene.

    “That’s NOT FUNNY!” the driven lad shouted.

    Well unfortunately it tickled my funny bone or maybe I was overwrought or something but at any rate I gasped: “Yes it is!” and collapsed in a mad fit of the giggles.

    At which point—no kidding—yet another male voice said from somewhere behind Christopher’s elegant form: “Well they’re all ’ere but bloody Lady P. ain’t. And if Mel doesn’t know yer I’m chucking you out on yer ear, matey.”

    And a very amused and much posher different voice said: “Oh she knows me all right. Hullo there, Mel darling; fleshpots and floral offerings, is it?”

    At which I lost it totally and screamed: “Where have you BEEN, John Raice, you bastard? Get OUT! Get out the lot of you! GET OUT!” And burst into, QED, floods of tears.

Next chapter:

https://theeggandfriendscomethrough-anovel.blogspot.com/2026/04/unexpected-aftermath-of-fiasco.html