Ostrich Country

‘Was he having the thing also about other foods?’ asked Alphonse.

‘One or two,’ said Pegasus non-committally, in case there should be other disasters.

He got his timings mixed up. Alphonse was cross.

‘I’m not used to these quantities,’ said Pegasus.

‘This place where you work, she was having no customers?’ said Alphonse.

‘Not many. The owner had a thing about customers,’ said Pegasus.

He needed quite a lot of help, he felt a bit of a fool, but lunch passed off without disaster. And no one sent their vegetables back.

He started early on dinner, and it all went much more smoothly. He began to lose his sense of absurdity. Here he was working alongside these true professionals. Alphonse, with his typical French moustache, and his lean, rather crooked, pimply face with a big nose and stick-out ears. Tonio, hairy and Italian, always either singing or swearing. Pegasus began to feel happy. He was too busy to think about Jane Hassett. Tonight he would sleep soundly. Tomorrow he would work still better. Soon he would be a great chef. And he still had all his fingers. He felt that he was coming to life, that he was starting to live his own natural, destined life. He began to sing, but silently, in case they should think him presumptuous.

7

Jane Hassett changed into an expensive, bottle green costume. She dressed swiftly, her movements charged with nervous energy. Her legs, which were so often heavy and lifeless, felt light, seemed eager to play their full part in the day’s activities.

She ran her left hand over her right breast and squeezed the nipple very gently, as if she was reassuring an old friend. The parts of her body often had an independent existence. Often as a child she had been a leg or an arm for several days, without anybody knowing. Never a breast. Not in those days.

Tony was out, gone to Norwich, to see about some new central heating equipment. All lies. Once again there was a woman. She sat down on the bed, lit a cigarette, smoked it urgently, practically devouring it, yet with elegance.

Four months they’d been here, and already it had started up again.

Tony had come into a big legacy last October when his rich Uncle James had been flambeed to death in brandy during a five course meal at an hotel in Berkshire. Tony went away on a business trip to Suffolk and bought the hotel he was staying in. He had said that the least they could do, in memory of his uncle, was to buy a hotel and never serve meals at the table. She had been presented with a fait accompli, as usual.

She had been nervous. She felt she was too thin to be taken seriously. Landladies were fat, autocratic women, with voluminous chins and loud voices, whose false hoarse laughter shook the mock-Tudor beams and set the antique swords rattling on the walls. Yet she had been a success. She thought she could count herself, to date, a reasonable success. It was Tony who had been the failure. Already he was bored. He’d found a new toy, a doll. The lies had begun again. The accusations and scenes would follow.

And it had all begun with a lie. She had seen his entry in the visitors’ book. Mr and Mrs Hassett. So much for his business trip to Suffolk.

She soaked her face-flannel in hot water and applied it to the spot above her lip. She held it there, feeling a sexual excitement in these preparations. Her throat was tickling, the approach of a cold. All his fault. Whenever the lies began she had some minor ailment. It was her system’s way of getting rid of the poison.

She took away the flannel and pressed a finger of each hand against the horrid little pimple. It popped and the white poison shot out. She wiped it off with her flannel. It was Tony. It was her husband, in suppurative form, and when it was gone she hated him less.

That was better. Nothing nauseous about a dull, red excrescence. Ready to go now.

She walked over to Rose Lodge, wondering if Tony had sent the poor boy there on purpose. It was sensible enough, on the face of it. There wasn’t room at the hotel. It would take their minds off their tragedy. And yet she felt sure that it was done in anger. He was annoyed because she had made the appointment on her own. Only he could do things on his own.

Brenda showed her up to Pegasus’s room.

‘He’s a nice boy,’ she said.

‘Oh good.’

‘Bill likes him.’

Pegasus opened the door and asked her in. She sat in the armchair and he sat in the hard chair. She had never once been unfaithful to Tony.

‘Would you like a cigarette?’ she said, offering her packet of tipped.

‘No, thanks, I don’t. I should offer you some but I haven’t any.’

‘I just came to see how you were getting on,’ said Jane.

‘All right, thank you.’

‘You heard about their tragedy, I suppose?’

‘Yes. They told me.’

‘They should have removed all these toys and things. It’s embarrassing for you.’

She stood up and went to the window.

‘At least you have a nice view,’ she said, instantly regretting the ‘at least’.

‘Yes. Very nice.’

She turned away from the window and smiled at him. He was still seated. She wanted to touch him. She felt a sneeze coming on, turned away politely, sneezed.

‘Bless you,’ he said.

When she turned round again he looked embarrassed. Why? He seemed tense too, but it wasn’t enough to go on. All this was in her imagination. She was in danger of making a fool of herself.

She sat down and took a deliberate puff at her cigarette, keeping herself calm.

‘Is the bed comfortable?’ she said.

‘Very, thank you.’

She crossed her legs, felt this to be a little theatrical, and uncrossed them.

‘I must say I wouldn’t like having those books and toys there,’ she said.

‘I would be happier if they were moved,’ said Pegasus, ‘but I don’t like to mention it.’

‘No. It’s difficult. Well I’m glad to see that apart from that you’re very comfortable.’

‘Yes. Very. And the view is very nice.’

A hiatus.

‘It must seem quiet after London?’

‘Yes, it does.’

‘Even with all the planes?’

‘We get those in London too.’

What a conversation! She must go, and it would be quite wrong anyway to use him as a pawn in her battle with Tony. She had never used anyone in that way. He might even be engaged.

‘How did you get on with Alphonse?’ she said.

‘Very well, I think.’

‘We’ve only had him three weeks. He’s very gallic.’

‘Yes.’

She decided it was stupid not to cross her legs, just because if done self-consciously it might seem theatrical. So she crossed her legs. Then she sneezed.

‘Bless you,’ he said, and then he looked embarrassed. Why?

‘If you ever have any problems, let me know,’ she said.

‘Yes, I will.’

She must go. She stood up abruptly and to her surprise found herself not at the door but at the window, looking out over the fields and woods of Lord Noseby’s estate. He joined her there and they stood side by side, looking out over Lord Noseby’s estate. She could feel his body, touching hers ever so slightly, either by accident or deliberately but made to seem like an accident.

‘At least you have a nice view,’ she said.

‘I’m sure I shall be very comfortable,’ he said.

There was a knock at the door. Both of them turned away from the window and returned to their chairs.

‘Come in,’ she said, forgetting it was not her room.

Brenda entered with three cups of coffee and three huge portions of iced chocolate cake.

‘I was thinking you might like some coffee,’ said Brenda.

‘Oh, thank you,’ said Pegasus.

‘Very thoughtful,’ said Jane.

The sun came out. Jane as employer sat in the easy chair. Brenda as landlady sat in the hard chair. Pegasus as Pegasus sat on his bed.

‘I hope he likes the room,’ said Brenda.

‘I’m sure he does,’ said Jane.

‘I do,’ said Pegasus.

‘It has a nice view,’ said Brenda.

‘Yes, it does,’ said Jane.

‘Little Johnny liked this room,’ said Brenda.

‘Did he?’ said Pegasus.

They took bites of their cake and washed the cake down with draughts of hot coffee.

‘We must move all these books and toys,’ said Brenda.

8

‘Look after yourself,’ said Bill.

‘Take care,’ said Brenda.

They continued waving until he was out of sight. Where do they think I’m going, he thought. Round the world? All I’m doing is going home for the week-end.

He hadn’t realized what a relief it would be to get away even for two days, away from the nightly cocoa sessions, the constant plans for a picnic, the ‘Wednesday Play’ being switched off the moment he came in, as if it was considered quite unsuitable for him.

He’d taken to reading Johnny’s books, in order to avoid conversation. Rather childish, on the whole, but there were no others. And Bill seemed to expect it. ‘You’ll find plenty of books up there,’ he said.

It was a lovely Saturday morning. Pegasus felt like singing, would have sung if he’d had the talent.

Forget Rose Lodge. Think how well the work’s going. Alphonse likes you. ‘Ah, Pegasus, you and you alone do I entrust to my beloved asparagus’ he had said. ‘You will go on a long road. You are my prodigy. You have the respect for the ingredient.’

On the Ipswich By-Pass Pegasus slowed down as he passed two girls. He opened the window and shouted: ‘I’ll go on a long road. I have the respect for the ingredient.’ The girls giggled.

Nothing had happened with Mrs Hassett. All that had been an illusion. When she came to his room he had been so near to grabbing hold of her, and when she sneezed he had said ‘Bless you’ more like a lover than an employee, but she hadn’t noticed. He had entirely misconstrued her reason for coming to his room.

He was glad, for Paula’s sake, that nothing had happened with Mrs Hassett.

‘I’m sorry, darling. I just don’t feel like going out,’ said Simon.

‘But it’s so nice,’ said Paula.

‘The sun’s shining in the window,’ said Simon. ‘That’s nice, too.’

‘It’s so nice out,’ said Paula.

‘You go out, then, if you want to.’

‘There’s not much point in my coming round to see you if I go out the moment I’ve arrived.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Simon. He was writing, at his desk, in his small neat hand.

‘I tell you what I do fancy,’ said Paula. ‘A bath.’

‘Good idea. Have one.’

Simon’s bathroom was in a different class from hers. Hers was shared.

‘You can have the wireless if you want to,’ said Simon.

Paula thanked him. It was a sacrifice. He didn’t really like exposing his radio to all that steam.

He came over to her and kissed her in that leisurely way of his.

‘We’ll make a real night out of it tonight,’ he said.

They probably would. He was always true to his promises.

‘Do you need the loo before I have my bath?’

‘No.’

He never did. A small thing, but irritating.

Pegasus sat on the seat and closed his eyes.

How could you, Paula?

Nothing.

Oh, Paula, Paula, Paula.

Nothing.

He opened his eyes again and looked out towards the bandstand with its pretty curved green roof. Old men were flying kites. One of the kites was a painted eagle, a lectern in the sky. He couldn’t see the surface of the Round Pond but he could see the miniature sailing boats sliding across the grass. In the foreground were the sharp cries of children. Behind them, far away, restful from this distance, the hum of traffic, like canned music.

Once more he tried to rebuild Paula, but he couldn’t remember her, only his memories of her. Remembrance of Paula past. ‘Paula darling’ meant ‘I remember what a darling you were, Paula, in the days when I used to say to you “Paula darling”.’

There is no one else, Paula. If I no longer have you I have no one.

Oh, Paula, Paula. Nothing.

Tarragon walked happily over the duckboards towards his favourite of all the hides, with the best view of the bearded tits and marsh harriers. He was on his own. Occasionally he brought friends to Suffolk, but never to the bird sanctuary.

There was somebody else there, in his favourite of all the hides. A woman, a square woman.

‘Plenty of beardies,’ said the square woman. ‘Gadwall to port, avocet’s nest straight ahead, three little stint to starboard.’

Damn the bitch. The pleasure of it was finding the things, spotting them in the far distance, pitting your wits against them, forgetting the banalities. The ability to speak was the curse of mankind, and more especially womankind, and most especially of all, square-jawed authoritative womankind.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘Don’t mench.’

Damn all square-jawed women. Damn all women. Damn all unsatisfied sexual feelings and all pathetic painful maladjustments. Damn his bloody family, the Clumps of Gloucestershire, and their inhibiting Cotswold seat. Damn all interruptions which spoilt the perfection of the pale filtered sunlight of May by the sea, the magical stillness of a morning without wind, of trees hardly stirring and of mists slowly clearing, and of thin films of white cloud drifting harmlessly overhead.

‘Beardies straight ahead. Quick. To the right. Gone.’

‘Never mind.’

Focus, Clump. Focus on beautiful creatures marred by cruelty but untouched by malice.

There was a great therapeutic calm in the drawing of his binoculars slowly over the stones and puddles and rank grass.

‘Two redshank copulating in line with that upturned rowing boat,’ said Tarragon. He looked the square-jawed woman in the face. ‘Nice morning for it,’ he said.

The square-jawed woman left the hide, and a weight was lifted from him. He had a splendid day, after that. Marsh harriers winging with lazy beats over the marsh, two girls sunbathing on the dunes, swallows and martins swooping and diving, a kestrel hovering, two girls sunbathing, a solitary shoveller flying purposefully towards its mate, two girls sunbathing.

Late in the afternoon, as the wisps of cloud grew thicker and a light wind began to disturb the unnatural stillness, Tarragon set off for the hotel. He began to feel excited. He hurried into a small copse on the edge of the marsh.

Sitting with his back against a tree he had a good view of the hotel. He scanned the upper windows through his binoculars.

I suppose this is voyeurism, he thought, without surprise. A new departure. It was true that he’d often hung around outside underground stations to see the pretty girls returning home from work, and had even followed them, admiring their legs and bottoms, but that was not voyeurism, since it had been his firm intention to speak to them, to invite them to a concert at the Festival Hall, and later to marry them. It wasn’t his fault that it hadn’t turned out like that.

But this was different, looking at girls from the protection of a bird sanctuary, watching out for Mrs Hassett, squinting through his binoculars, 8 × 35, a good magnification for bird-watching and not too bad for voyeurism. He felt ashamed, yet continued. And was rewarded. At 5.45 he saw her, changing in preparation for the evening’s duties. He fancied he could see her breasts—small, neat breasts. He was almost certain that she was applying powder to her armpits. He saw a flash of something pale, her back perhaps, as she twisted into a dress.

‘You find Mrs Hassett attractive, no?’

Tarragon jumped and scrambled guiltily to his feet. He blushed.

‘I startled you?’

It was Alphonse.

‘Yes, you — er — you did. I think there’s a swallow’s nest under the eaves.’

‘Now to me, Mrs Hassett, she has not my sort. She is a little, how you say, not so enough effeminate. A little what I would say Parisian.’

‘I thought I saw a hawk of some kind flying past the hotel.’

‘Me, I like more the country girl, yes? In my native Provence, there they have the roundness, how you say, swollen. Oh, monsieur, you should see them.’

Tarragon had no wish just then to see the swollen girls of Alphonse’s native Provence. He set off towards the hotel, with Alphonse at his heels.

‘The swallows were rather early this year,’ he said.

‘You are a coal mine of interesting information, Mr Clump,’ said Alphonse. ‘I think perhaps my information also to Mrs Hassett and your family will be quite interesting, too.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I see you by the wood. I think “he is up to some bad”. I am very interesting. I watch. I think, this is a man with pictures of the excellent Miss Blossom in his portmanteau.’

‘How the devil …’

‘One of the chambermaids, she is not so discreet. What a shame.’

‘All lies. I shall report you.’

Tarragon stalked angrily to his room and opened his suitcase. His pictures of Miss Blossom had gone.

The rain belt drifted in unexpectedly from Northern France and reached Uxbridge during tea.

‘George,’ said his mother. ‘We forgot to show him Edgar’s book.’

‘Oh yes,’ said his father. ‘You know your Great Great Uncle Edgar lives in Suffolk.’

‘I didn’t even know I had a Great Great Uncle Edgar.’

‘He’s the brother of your father’s grandfather, and he lives in Suffolk. And we quite forgot until the other day that we’ve got a book of his, all about Suffolk.’

‘What’s it called?’

‘Suffolk.’

Diana snorted.

‘Well anyway,’ his mother continued, ‘it’s got quite a long passage about your hotel in it.’

‘Big deal,’ said Diana.

‘Well it’s interesting,’ said Pegasus.

‘Oh bloody fascinating,’ said Diana. ‘Far more interesting than Vietnam or the under-developed countries or non-proliferation or neo-Nazism, which is building up in this country too, you know, or you would if you had eyes to see, or whether organized religion has any relevance to modern life, or the function of the artist in a bourgeois, materialist society. Far more bloody interesting.’ And she stormed out, slamming the door.

Try though he did Pegasus thought, thank goodness Tom Graveney isn’t here to see all this.

‘She’s going through a phase,’ said his mother.

‘I’d like to see that book,’ said Pegasus.

His mother fetched it for him. Suffolk, by E. Newton Baines.

‘The Goat and Thistle came by its name in the following somewhat unusual fashion. It was the custom of the vicar, one Arnold Holyoake, M.A., in an effort to combat the robust heathenism of his flock, to visit the tap rooms of the several alehouses in his parish.

‘So easy-going was the nature of the good divine, and so enfeebled his memory, that he invariably forgot the purpose that lay behind his visit. The gentle man of God, therefore, would appear to have learnt more of “Skittle-bowls” and “shove the penny” than his parishioners did of the Almighty.

‘One evening, his habitual amnesia heightened by a moderate consumption of strong liquor, he left his coat at the tavern and, wandering home in his shirt sleeves, had the misfortune to trip over an alder sapling and break his leg. He died of pneumonia but two days later.

‘When the coat was noticed by Mine Host Will Arnscott, an ancestor of the Big Tom Arnscott whose immense cricket hit was referred to on page 623, a small copy of the Bible fell from the pocket and opened at the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Ephesians. The inn became known as the Coat and Epistle, a name which soon became corrupted to Goat and Thistle.’

‘Very interesting,’ said Pegasus.

‘I thought you’d find it interesting,’ said his mother.

It was still raining when Tarragon Clump got up on Sunday morning but soon the rain moved out over the sluggish oily sea. Tarragon went down to the river for a sail.

The tide was out, and the river was at its best, secret down there below its rims of mud. Tarragon’s spirits rose. He handled the little dinghy well. He got everything he could out of the wind, the wind and he were friends, his face was salty, he would go back and have a drink in the bar, and invite Mrs Hassett up to London for dinner one evening. There would be time to ask her while she was serving him.

He walked up the lane and then across the heath. Tony Hassett served him.

‘Nice morning,’ he said amiably.

After their Sunday dinner his father suggested a car trip. They went to the National Gallery.

‘Rotten luck that chap Turner had with his weather,’ said his father.

Tarragon Clump had a puncture less than a mile from the hotel. Damn damn damn.

He drove back aggressively, taking it out on the car, sweating freely, cursing the Sunday drivers with surprisingly violent oaths.

Simon and Paula went to evensong. Canon Mulgrave was on form.

Through Brentford and Shenfield and Chelmsford and Ipswich sped Pegasus towards the beckoning sea, past filling stations and drab dead houses, past grimy cafés and fields full of dead old cars, thinking that this time there was no need to feel excited about seeing Mrs Hassett, from now on he would devote himself solely to the learning of his art, and the last thing you wanted to do was to get tangled up with a married woman.

He looked forward to it all. The steady routine, the heat, the moments of furious activity when the orders came thick and fast, the hearty swearing of his colleagues. Alphonse, convinced that all the English were pigs. Tonio, convinced that all the English were pigs. Pegasus, the Englishman who would prove them wrong and one day outshine them both.

So far he had performed only routine tasks, flexing his taste buds. Soon he would create a great masterpiece — his own. He was so eager to get back to work that he didn’t even dread Rose Lodge.

They had some cake for him, and some tinned pears.

‘What sort of a time did you have?’ said Bill.

‘What did you do?’ said Brenda.

‘Tell us all about it,’ said Bill.

There wasn’t much to tell, but what there was he told. They listened as if it was the most exciting story they had ever heard.

‘I expect you were sorry to leave,’ said Brenda.

‘Though glad to get back,’ said Bill.

‘Yes,’ said Pegasus.

‘We’ll have that picnic soon,’ said Bill.

9

Even the faint scratching of his nail on her hand or the touch of her lips rubbed across his had been vibrant and thrilling. It had been lovely to live through that thrill. Now these same gestures were already memories, mere expressions of gratitude. And although he knew that this was how it always was, he asked himself whether his desire had all been an illusion.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘Thank you.’

It was broad daylight in her bedroom. The sun shone in through the window. The afternoon was alive with sunshine and the possibility of unexpected window cleaners.

Tony had gone off for the day, ostensibly to an exhibition of ventilating equipment at Earls Court. He had announced last night, in the bar, that he was going. Mr Thomas, the milkman, had smiled at Mr Block the chandler as if he was a ferret let loose in a warren of innuendo. ‘He’ll be ventilating his equipment all right, but not at Earls Court,’ he had murmured. Pegasus had felt angry.

‘Feeling guilty?’ said Jane.

‘Just reflective,’ said Pegasus.

Guilt, you could easily mistake it for guilt. It was a vague sense of absurdity, nothing more. You were in bed, naked together, impelled there by impulses which already belonged to the past. It was impossible to go on without a sense of surprise. And in this case there were added dangers. A married woman. An employer employee relationship.

‘I hope all this isn’t against union rules,’ he said.

‘It’s a productivity bonus,’ said Jane.

‘An incentive.’