Ostrich Country

David Nobbs

Ostrich Country

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

About the Author

Praise

Other Books by David Nobbs

Copyright

About the Publisher

1

‘A change of environment will bring you new business and personal interests,’ said Cousin Percy.

Pegasus was glad to hear this. He fancied a change of environment. He could do with some new business and personal interests.

‘Thanks,’ he said.

Pegasus cherished a secret ambition — to be a chef in a country inn. He’d never told anyone, not even Paula, for fear they’d laugh. It had become, over the years, something almost shameful. Several times he’d been on the point of taking action, but always this fear of ridicule had held him back. Now, with Cousin Percy’s prediction to urge him on, it would be different.

‘You will star in a new musical,’ said Cousin Percy to Pamela Blossom, actress, singer, pin-up of the Atlantic weather ship S.S. Hailstone.

‘I could do with the money,’ said Miss Blossom.

He wanted to leave, to start his new life straight away, to go down to Kensington Gardens, to the seat, and say good-bye to Paula. He accepted another glass of the red wine and willed Cousin Percy to hurry up.

‘You will win a vast new export order in the Middle East,’ said Cousin Percy to Thomas Windham, the industrialist.

‘That would certainly be just the fillip we need, and I’m sure everyone at Articulated Tubes and Cartons, on both sides, will do their level best to make your prophecy come true,’ commented Thomas Windham.

Fifteen celebrities sitting in a circle, waiting for their predictions, waiting for the photographer to catch their modest smiles, all invited because they were tipped to be the big names in their chosen fields during the next decade. All except Pegasus, who was there because he was family.

‘You will operate on a royal personage,’ said Cousin Percy to Tarragon Clump, the kidney surgeon.

‘Well well,’ said Tarragon Clump, who wasn’t used to giving quotes.

Why had they all come? Vanity? Curiosity? Dipsomania? Agoraphobia? And why did Cousin Percy do it? Aged thirty-four. Ordained 1959. Suddenly lost his faith during the 1961 Cup Final, in the fifty-third minute. Became a free-lance journalist and designer. Pegasus had seen a play he’d designed — strong, spiky scenery. What had made him become the horoscopist for Clang and give this repulsive prediction party?

‘Will I do the double this year?’ said Edward Forrest, the cricketer, whom Pegasus had once seen bowled first ball at Lords.

‘It will be a rewarding time emotionally, and a plan will bear fruit,’ said Cousin Percy.

‘Stuff the bloody emotions,’ said Edwin Forrest. ‘Stuff a plan bearing fruit. Will I do the double?’

He would leave London, the dreary institute off the North Circular Road, the bad dreams, his Hampstead flatlet where an old woman died upstairs and three months later he found out.

There’d be no more dreams, not in the country. Dreamless sleep.

‘You will compere a new quiz programme between members of the dry-cleaning trade.’

At last the predictions were over. The circle broke up, conversation began. He could leave now.

He took a last glass of wine and drank it rapidly. Behind him someone said: ‘I suppose royalty would be much the same as everyone else as regards vital organs, would they, Mr Clump?’ but he didn’t stop to hear the reply. He said: ‘Good-bye. I must be off,’ and Cousin Percy said ‘Oh, are you off?’ and then the voices faded and he was breathing the cold, clammy February air and he was on his way to Kensington Gardens.

He must get away from his old haunts and his memories of Paula. He must stop hanging around the National Film Theatre on Jean-Luc Godard nights in the hope of seeing her. He must cease these visits to Kensington Gardens.

His heart quickened as he approached the seat — the fifth seat on the left of the Broad Walk going towards Bayswater. It was on this seat that he had first kissed her, and it had been there that they had usually met.

He sat on the seat now and thought about her. He thought about the smell of her flesh, that faint, earthy, rubbery emanation of warmth.

She had light fair hair and her eyes … he couldn’t remember the colour of her eyes.

His parents would be upset. They had made sacrifices. Weather forecasting wasn’t all that well paid. They saw him as a famous biologist. His mother had visions of the Nobel Prize. Stockholm. Steady, sincere, unemotional applause. It would be hard to tell them, especially after all these years, especially after it had grown into such a secret ambition.

A new leaf, blown on warm zephyrs. A new life. A new Pegasus. New business and personal interests. A limitless prospect. You’re going to miss out on all this, Paula.

The sky was heavy and colourless. Night would creep up unobserved. Pegasus sat on the seat, rather drunk, rather cold, thinking about Paula.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember her legs, slightly on the short side. She was a little round-shouldered but very desirable, unless his memory was playing him false. He thought of his lips flecking the inside of her arm just below the armpit, and of licking her left ear, in Academy One, during the Czech cartoon.

Soon his eyes filled with tears and his lips moved a little as he appealed to her.

Paula, Paula, how could you do it? I would have adored you for ever. Any impression you may have received to the contrary was caused by the tension which is inseparable from an intimate relationship between two tender and passionate souls. How could you leave me for anyone, let alone a man who translates Ogden Nash into Latin as a hobby? How could you make such a nonsense of my life, my darling rubbery lovely utterly …

Hell! A light silent rain was beginning to fall from the still, grey February sky. He was getting wet, because he had brought no raincoat, because his father had told him that the fine weather would continue.

2

Some of the slides had a man in them, and when one of these was shown the pigeons would find food. Some of them had no man in them. This meant that the pigeons would find only buttons and hard objects in the bowls.

When this pattern had been fully established, when man in slide equalled goodies even to the most retarded pigeon, Cummings would insert the algae. Some untreated, some flavoured, some mixed with pesticides, some from the outflow of nuclear power stations. Then Bradley and Pegasus would correlate the results.

Pegasus was merely a cog in all this. Miss Besant brought him his instructions from Mr Colthorpe, he got his results, Miss Besant took his results back to Mr Colthorpe. His little piece of work was fitted into someone else’s grand design.

Bradley passed through now.

‘Fantastic,’ said Bradley.

‘Yes?’

‘The cats given the fish-flavoured weed from the Yorkshire Ouse are doing fantastically well. Twelve per cent heavier than the cats fed on normal cat food.’

‘Fantastic.’

This was progress. Vast immovable growths of weed-guzzling cat. Must make the break today, while Cousin Percy’s prediction is fresh in my mind.

Pegasus had often alleviated the boredom and distastefulness of his work by trying to convince himself that it was in the national interest, that he was a dedicated man, patriotically resisting the brain drain.

At other times, when he was wanting to persuade himself to give up and become a chef, he’d tried to convince himself that it wasn’t in the national interest, or that the national interest wasn’t in the world interest, or something, anything helpful.

He had never yet convinced himself of anything.

He began to go through the arguments again, the same old arguments, so familiar that he thought of them in note form nowadays.

He thought: Food, research into new sources of. For: increased use of earth’s resources. Elimination of starvation. Against: increased depletion of earth’s resources. Elimination of starvation could lead to even worse population problems, hence to even worse starvation.

Conclusion as regards value for mankind of nutritional experiments: no conclusion.

Miss Besant was typing — smoothly, lightly, efficiently, by way of contrast with her plump figure and red legs. She lodged in Willesden with two friends, kept her personality in the bank and only withdrew it at week-ends.

The coffee came round. Have one on me, Miss Besant. Nice momentarily to feel generous. Vile coffee. Niceness gone. No air. Stifling. Poor old pigeons. Dancing helplessly to man’s absurd tune. Slides in one of the cages not coming through. Sort that out. Coffee now cold. Resume arguments.

To hell with the arguments. Make the break now.

‘Miss Besant?’

The clacking stopped.

‘Yes?’

‘Will you do me a favour? Go and get me a copy of the Caterer and Hotel Keeper, if you can find one.’

The decision had been made at last.

It was National Pig Week, and a display of pig products had been laid out in Reception. A double track model railway wended its way among the scenic gammon, and two pork pies rode slowly round and round, one in each direction, from nine till five-thirty.

Mr Prestwick, personnel manager of Wine and Dine Ltd, averted his gaze from this exhibit as he made his way back to his tiny, hot office high above the Euston Road.

‘Send Mr Baines in, Miss Purkiss,’ he said into the intercom.

His ulcer was playing him up, his rise hadn’t materialized, his wife had sent a van for all her furniture, he was living alone in half-empty rooms, he had never felt less like managing personnel.

Baines entered, with all the absurd hopes of youth. A tall, slim, quite good-looking young man with slightly stick-out ears and a surprisingly solid face.

‘So you want to work for us?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Baines, and Mr Prestwick envied him his steady unaffected middle-class voice. Something was going wrong with Mr Prestwick’s voice. It didn’t always stay tuned in quite right. Sometimes there was a low whistle, or a hum, or a crackle.

‘One or two questions, just make sure you know your French irregular herbs,’ said Mr Prestwick.

Baines managed some kind of a smile. They usually managed some kind of a smile.

‘Are you familiar with our organization?’

‘Not really.’

‘You’re aware that we’re synonymous with quality?’

‘I imagine you would be.’

‘Do you want bouillabaise in Barnsley or moussaka in Macclesfield? Then dine and wine at your nearest Wine and Dine house. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’

‘I’m afraid not, sir.’

‘Visit the Golden Galleon, Aylesbury, and enjoy the best of British Duck?’

‘No sir.’

Those idiots in 117 had been wasting their time. Mr Prestwick laughed inwardly, hurting his ulcer.

‘I want to work in the country, sir.’

‘You’re a graduate, Baines. Arts graduates …’ My God, I whined. I went off my wavelength. He hasn’t shown he’s noticed. ‘Arts graduates go either into management or to our scenic department at Hatfield, where all our décor and costumes are made. Science graduates go to our research department at Staines. You are a science graduate. You would be sent to Staines.’

‘But I thought I made it clear, sir. I want to be a chef.’

‘We sent a chap like you to Staines two years ago, and already he’s our chief macaroon consistency supervisor.’

‘But sir …’

‘You have a science degree. I don’t think the organization would let you waste your talents by becoming a chef.’

‘Well, if you can’t give me this job as chef in a country hotel, sir, I honestly think I’d better look elsewhere.’

Mr Prestwick followed Baines’s back as he walked away down the Euston Road. His own son had been a disappointment.

‘Miss Purkiss?’

Miss Purkiss entered with her long legs and notebook.

‘Take a letter, Miss Purkiss. Reference AB/47/32E. Dear Mrs Prestwick. Further to my letter of the twenty-sixth ult. I must report that the nest of tables was mine. It was left to me by Aunt … Miss Purkiss?’

‘Yes, Mr Prestwick?’

‘Is there anything at all odd about my voice?’

‘No, Mr Prestwick.’

‘My voice seems completely normal to you, does it?’

‘Oh yes, Mr Prestwick.’

Why did they all think he wasn’t capable of facing up to the truth?

He must seize the moment. If he waited until he’d got a job, he might never leave.

But ought he to leave? Wasn’t his true work here, with Bradley and Cummings?

Pegasus thought: Two. Will knowledge gained in methods of conditioning minds of living beings prove beneficial or harmful to mankind?

Disturbing thought: What can be done by Cummings to a pigeon can be done by a dictator to Cummings.

Unclassified thought: Scientific enquiry in itself neither good nor bad. A process.

Question: Can we ignore future applications?

Answer: No. Therefore we must ask ourselves the

Further Question: Is man good or bad?

Answer: No.

Supplementary Question: Is …

Bradley came through, looking rather sad.

‘Can’t understand it,’ he said.

‘No?’

‘All the Dungeness rats have died.’

Bradley’s sadness lay not in the ending of animal life but in the refusal of the rats to fulfil man’s predictions.

He must act now.

‘May I use your typewriter for a moment, Miss Besant?’

He began to type his notice. Then he hesitated.

He thought: Three. In favour of experiments with minds of birds and animals. Could help fight against mental illness. By helping to understand animal mind, could help to liberate human mind.

Against. Could be used by fascists, dictators, power-mad school prefects (Murdoch!) etc. By helping to understand animal mind, could help to enslave human mind.

Conclusion: no conclusion.

Always the same. It was impossible to decide anything by means of reason, either because he had an inferior mind or because it really was impossible to decide anything by means of reason.

The Dungeness rats had all died, poor sods. Life would be easier if he could hate rats, but he didn’t. He never wished anything any harm, rats, Paula, spiders, anything.

He resumed his typing. As he typed he could see Cummings, cooing to the pigeons, rapidly becoming one himself, inflated Cummings going through his courtship display. Coo coo. Conditioning himself when he thought he was conditioning others.

He finished typing his notice. He put it in an envelope. He addressed the envelope to Mr Colthorpe. He dropped the envelope into the internal mail tray. He felt wonderful.

‘Miss Besant?’

‘Yes.’

‘If your boy friend told you that he knew a place where you could get the best algae in the Home Counties, what would you say?’

‘I haven’t got a boy friend, Mr Baines.’

He had only thought of Paula once during the last hour. He was on the mend.

‘Why not, Miss Besant?’

‘Why not what, Mr Baines?’

‘Why haven’t you got a boy friend?’

‘What a question, Mr Baines.’

It was not Pegasus’s nature to be referred to as ‘Mr Baines’ by young women. He wanted Miss Besant to call him ‘Pegasus’. He wanted to share his happiness with someone, so he asked her out that evening. She wasn’t beautiful or intelligent, but she was nice, and wasn’t it selfish always to go for the beautiful and intelligent? He would choose this nice lonely Miss Besant, whom no one else had chosen.

As the evening wore on he grew terrified that Paula would see him with Miss Besant. He took her to the Classic, Tooting, in order to avoid being seen by anyone he knew.

His old head prefect Murdoch was sitting two rows behind them. What did it matter? Why on earth did he mind?

That night he dreamt that he was in a cage, being fed on seaweed and Cummings’s droppings. Twelve school prefects were waiting for him to do his sample. An electric recording device had been fitted to his head. Some of the slides showed traffic accidents. The others showed Miss Besant. Sometimes there was blood in the accident, and sometimes there was blood on Miss Besant. When there was blood he got an electric shock. It was hot, stifling. The sweat poured off him.

3

Easter Saturday, an early Easter in March. A cool strong wind buffeting the windows of the Goat and Thistle. The buds vulnerable on the trees round the fine Suffolk church. The village spreading away down all the lanes, out of the church’s grasp. Nearby the sea, the estuary, the bird sanctuary, the nuclear power station, and all the secret research establishments which are such a feature of the unspoilt East Anglian countryside. Peace and quiet, except for the traffic, the planes screaming overhead, a radio blaring in a garden. Manchester City’s greater attacking flair will just about see them through. This could be the year when they hit the proverbial jackpot. Saturday. Easter Saturday.

In the bar of the Goat and Thistle Jane Hassett was serving beer to two early bird-watchers and Mr Thomas, the milkman. In the dining-room people were lunching in undertones. From the windows you could see the marsh and the sea, but the power station was hidden by heathland. It was a backwater.

Tarragon Clump, the amateur naturalist, keen dinghy sailor, virgin and kidney surgeon, sat at a window table in the stark dining-room with its white tablecloths and clinical white walls. Its spirit of non-conformism weighed on him, and he ordered a half bottle of wine instead of a full one. He chewed his tiny piece of lukewarm sole in parsley sauce morosely. Vulgarians, thought Tarragon, the English, thinking of them as if they were foreigners, his own family even, the Clumps of Gloucestershire. He looked out over the marsh and tried to make out a bird that wheeled indolently over the distant woods. Too far. Binoculars not yet unpacked.

He turned his head to gaze greedily at Patsy’s legs as she bore inexpertly towards him a plate of devilled kidneys and five veg, all watery.

‘I wonder if I could have some mustard,’ said Tarragon, and he shifted in his seat, the better to look up Patsy’s legs as she leant over to reach the mustard.

I wonder if there’ll be any pochard on the marsh, he thought, to take his mind off Patsy’s saignant legs as she reached for the mustard.

‘You already have mustard,’ she said, blushing as she saw the mustard pot on Tarragon’s table.

‘So I have, Patsy.’ He smiled at her. Patsy with her country ways. Patsy, the potential haystack tumbler. Patsy and the other waitress, Brenda, trim like an air hostess.

Unmarried at thirty-seven, Tarragon had come to feel for the Goat and Thistle the sort of affection married men look for in mistresses — secret, temporal, understanding, no need to book in advance. His modest, domestic Jacobean mistress, plastered, three gables, thin wisps of pargetting. Unchanging.

And now once again it was under new management. Once again it had to be established that Tarragon Clump was a regular here, a popular figure with his ready money and manly binoculars, his thick pullovers and square-jawed, wide-nosed, narrow-foreheaded face. It had to be hinted that in London he was a success. A leading man in his field. A man who would one day operate on a royal personage.

He attacked his meal aggressively, trying not to gaze at Patsy or Brenda, feeling the excitement of the impending marsh, glad to be back. Four whole days, four gumbooted forceps-free days of bliss. A little sailing in his dinghy. A lot of bird-watching. A steady movement of his big, strong legs over squelching paths. Oh, Clump, there is health in you yet.

When this vile meal was over he would introduce himself to this new woman in the bar, he would sum her up over a brandy. Young, surprisingly young. Good thing too.

Over his brandy he said: ‘Well it’s nice to be back.’

‘You’re one of our regulars, are you?’

‘I manage the occasional weekend. Plus the odd week here and there. Odd’s the operative word.’

I must stop saying that, thought Tarragon. Odd’s the operative word. It doesn’t mean anything.

‘I’m Jane Hassett,’ said Mrs Hassett.

‘Clump,’ said Tarragon. ‘Tarragon Clump.’

‘Back again, then, Mr Clump,’ said Mr Crabbe the storekeeper.

She couldn’t be more than thirty. Long neck, bony white shoulders, curved nostrils, green eyes, one thing after another, several of his favourites among them. Cut it out, Clump.

Two young men entered the bar. One of them was vaguely familiar. They ordered pints.

‘Frankly, you want to do something about the cooking,’ said Tarragon.

‘I know,’ said Mrs Hassett. ‘We’ve got a man coming next month. A Frenchman.’

‘Ah, a Frenchman,’ said Tarragon.

‘I hope you won’t mind my asking,’ said the vaguely familiar young man. ‘But you don’t happen to have a vacancy, do you? In the kitchen, I mean.’

‘Well, we do need a vegetable chef,’ said Mrs Hassett.

The whole thing was fixed up in no time, and the vaguely familiar young man bought drinks all round.

‘You’re Tarragon Clump, the kidney surgeon, aren’t you?’ he said.

‘We call ourselves renal surgeons, but yes, I am.’

‘I met you at my cousin’s prediction party. I’m Pegasus Baines.’

‘I thought you were vaguely familiar.’

‘He’s never even been vaguely familiar with me,’ said the other young man.

‘This is my friend Mervyn,’ said Pegasus.

The tall, familiar one had apparently been driving around from hotel to hotel, begging for work.

Tarragon fixed his eyes on Mrs Hassett’s neck and said: ‘His cousin writes a horoscope. Old friend of mine.’

‘I never read them,’ she said. ‘Afraid, perhaps.’

‘Any operations on royalty yet?’ said Pegasus.

‘Not yet,’ said Tarragon.

‘A good year for kidneys, is it?’ said Mervyn.

‘The beer’s good,’ said Pegasus.

Tarragon felt annoyed. These people had come between him and Mrs Hassett. They had disturbed his afternoon.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I think I’ll be off down the marsh. See if I can see the odd bird or two. Odd’s the operative word.’

Damn!

4

Pegasus sat with Morley and Diana on the back lawn of twenty-three Grimsdike Crescent, Uxbridge, waiting for Sunday lunch. Blackbirds sang, planes flew overhead, and the world stood still, waiting for Sunday lunch.

A faint breeze blew snatches of radio towards them, Two Way Family Favourites, the Critics. We’ve been to see the exhibition of Private Bob Norris of B.A.O.R. 17. I loved the way he captured the, the as it were, the at once transitory and yet eternal beauty of Mavis Bungstock, who lives at ninety-seven, Cratchett Lane, Axminster. She hopes to see you soon, Bob, and could well develop into the Francis Bacon of the 1970s.