by M C Beaton
So he had lied about getting something in for his supper, thought Agatha bleakly.
A Mr Bernard Spott, an elderly gentleman, led the meeting. There were familiar faces in the gloom of the school hall, where two fluorescent lights had failed to function and the remaining one whined and stuttered above their heads. Children's drawings were pinned up on the walls. There was something depressing about children's paintings on the walls of a room at an adult gathering, thought Agatha, as if underlining the fact that childhood was long gone and never to return. The Boggles were there, that sour elderly couple who complained about everything. Mrs Mason, who was chairwoman of the Carsely Ladies' Society, was in the front row beside Mrs Bloxby. Doris Simpson, Agatha's cleaner, came in and sat beside Agatha, muttering a 'Welcome back.' Behind her came Miss Simms, the unmarried mother who was secretary of the Ladies' Society, tottering on her high heels.
Mr Spott droned on about the annual horticultural show, which was to be held in July. After that, in August, there was the Great Day when the members of the society opened their gardens to the public. Fred Griggs, the local policeman, then read the minutes of the last meeting as if giving evidence in court.
Agatha stifled a yawn. What was the point of all this? James was definitely not interested in her and never would be. She regretted the expense of the greenhouse. She let her mind wander. It was surely wicked to wish for another murder, but that was what she found she was doing. She hated attending things like this where she knew she did not belong. Gardening, mused Agatha, was something one had to grow up doing. Any plant which had shown its head in the Birmingham slum in which she had been brought up had been promptly savaged by the local children.
There was a shuffling of feet as the meeting ended. And there was Mary, very much the hostess with the mostest, presiding over the tea-urn at the end of the hall.
Agatha turned to Doris. "Thanks for keeping my place so clean," she said. "You into this gardening lark?"
"Just started last year," said Doris. "It's good fun."
"This doesn't seem much like fun," commented Agatha, looking sourly down the hall to where James was standing next to Mary, who was pouring tea and handing out plates of cakes.
"It gets better when things start growing."
"Our newcomer appears highly popular," said Agatha.
"Not with me."
Oh, sensible Doris. Oh, treasure beyond compare! "Why?"
"I dunno." Doris's pale grey eyes were shrewd behind her glasses. "She does everything right and she's right nice to everybody, but there's no warmth there. It's as if she's acting."
"James Lacey seems taken with her."
"That won't last."
Agatha felt a sudden surge of hope. "Why?"
"Because he's a clever man and she just appears clever. He's a nice man and she's only pretending to be nice. That's the way I see it."
"I brought you a present," said Agatha. "You can collect it when you come round tomorrow."
"Thanks a lot, but you shouldn't have bothered, really. How're your cats?"
"Ignoring me. Didn't like the cattery."
"Instead of paying that cattery, next time you go off, leave them be and I'll come round every day and feed them and let them out for a bit. Better in their own home."
Mrs Bloxby came up to them, followed by Miss Simms. She was wearing the new scarf. "So pretty," she said. "I couldn't wait until Sunday to wear it."
Agatha turned to Miss Simms. "I have a present for you as well."
"That's ever so nice of you," said Miss. Simms. "But you haven't had any tea, Agatha, and Mary makes such good cakes."
"Maybe next time," replied Agatha, who had no intention of making herself suffer further by going and joining James and Mary.
Mary Fortune looked down the room at the ever growing group around Agatha Raisin. She began to pack up the tea things, putting the few cakes left in a plastic box.
"I'll carry that home for you," said James. He could not help noticing as he left with Mary that the group about Agatha were laughing at something she was saying and no one turned to watch them go, but it would have amazed him to know that Agatha, although she never turned round, was aware, with every fibre of her being, of every step he took towards the door.
The night was crisp and cold and frosty. Great stars burnt overhead. James felt content with the world.
"That Agatha Raisin is a peculiarly vulgar type of woman," he realized Mary was saying.
"Agatha can be a bit abrupt at times," he said defensively, "but she is actually very good-hearted."
"Watch out, James," teased Mary. "Our repressed village spinster has her eye on you."
"As far as I know, Agatha is a divorcee like yourself," said James stiffly. Loyalty made him forget all the times he had avoided Agatha when she was pursuing him. "I don't want to discuss her."
She gave a little laugh. "Poor James. Of course you don't."
She began to talk about gardening and James walked beside her and tried to bring back the feelings of warmth and elation he usually felt in her company. But he had not liked her snide remark about Agatha. He admired bravery, and there was no doubt there was a certain gallantry about Agatha Raisin which appealed to him.
He saw Mary to her door and handed over the cake box, and to her obvious surprise refused her invitation for the usual cup of coffee.
Agatha, too preoccupied with the James-Mary business, had failed to notice her own popularity at the horticultural society. But Agatha had never been popular in her life before. She had been the successful owner of a public relations company, having only recently sold up and retired to move to Carsely. Hitherto, her work had been her life and her identity. The people in her life had been her staff, and the journalists whom she had bullied into giving space to whomever or whatever she happened to be promoting.
When she opened the door and the phone began to ring, she looked at it almost in surprise.
"Hello?" she asked tentatively.
"Aggie? How's life in Peasantville?" came the mincing tones of her ex-assistant, Roy Silver.
"Oh, Roy. How are you?" said Agatha.
"Working as usual, and feeling bored. Any hope of an invitation?"
Agatha hesitated. She wondered if she really liked Roy any more, or, for that matter, had ever liked him. She had invited him before when she was desperate for company. Still, it would be nice to talk PR for a change and find out what was going on in London.
"You can come this weekend," she said. "I'll pick you up in Moreton-in-Marsh. Got a girl?"
"No, just little me, sweetie. Still microwaving everything?"
"I'm a proper cook now," said Agatha severely.
"I'll get the train that gets in about eleven thirty," said Roy. "See you then. Any murders?"
Agatha thought bitterly of Mary Fortune.
"Not yet," she said. "Not yet."
Two
Agatha was surprised to receive a handwritten invitation to drinks at Mary's for Friday evening. It had been pushed through the letter-box the day after the horticultural society meeting.
She stared down at it as if it were some species of poisonous insect. She then walked up to her bedroom and surveyed herself in the mirror. Her figure had thickened with all the food she had eaten on her travels, comfort food to combat the loneliness. She looked decidedly matronly. She put the invitation down on the dressing-table and took one of her best dresses out of the wardrobe and, quickly slipping off the old sweater and trousers she was wearing, tried it on. To her relief it seemed to look the same, although it felt tight, but when she twisted round and surveyed her back, it was to see with dismay two rolls of fat above the line of her knickers. How could she go to Mary's and compete with her in any way? That was the trouble about being in one's fifties.
Unless one's figure was firmly kept in check at all times, it suddenly began to sag alarmingly and develop nasty rolls of fat.
She changed back and decided to put off accepting the invitation until she had thought
clearly what to do. In the meanwhile, she would drive into one of the cheap supermarkets in Evesham and get food for the weekend, picking up some fresh fruit and vegetables from the open-air stands on the A44.
At the supermarket, she decided to have a cup of coffee in the cafe before shopping. She found that although she had brought cigarettes, she had left her lighter behind, so she went up to the cigarette counter and asked for a cheap lighter. "These," said the middle-aged assistant, "are electronically controlled."
"What does that mean?" asked Agatha.
"See, it clicks down without much pressure." She beamed at Agatha. "Very good for the elderly who have trouble with their thumbs."
Agatha glared at her. "I hate you."
"Madam, I just said - "
"Never mind," snarled Agatha, "I'll take it. How much?"
"Eight-five pee. But - "
Agatha slammed down the right money, picked up the lighter and stormed off. Was this what happened at fifty-something when you didn't wear make-up? Getting mistaken for a geriatric?
Come on, sounded the voice of logic in her head, she didn't mean you. Oh, yes, she did, shrieked her bruised emotions. She got herself a cup of coffee at the self-service counter, winced away from the cream cakes and sat moodily down at the window and glared out at the carpark.
There is something very lowering about drinking coffee in a British supermarket while surveying the car-park. Trees surrounded it, wispy, newly planted trees which must have looked very neat and pretty when made out of green sponge on the architect's model. Agatha could almost imagine herself placed in the cafe window on the model, a small plastic Agatha. It was a dusty, windy day. Discarded wrappings spiralled up and a thin film of greasy rain began to blur the windows. Agatha sighed heavily. It would be very comfortable to forget about the James Laceys of this world and give up, become fat and contented, leave the skin creams alone and let the wrinkles happen. She would not go to Mary's. She would be sensible.
But there would be no harm in getting the bicycle out and taking some exercise.
Mary Fortune stood surveying her guests on Friday. She had a plentiful supply of drinks of all kinds and had cooked hot little savouries to go with them. But people weren't staying, and an awful lot of them had looked around and asked, "Where's Mrs Raisin?" And Mary had replied sweetly that as Mrs Raisin was expecting a guest at the weekend, she was staying at home to make preparations. Jimmy Page, the farmer, said he thought he had seen Agatha heading for the Red Lion, and an irritating woman, Mrs Toms, said, "Might just drop down there and thank her for that present," and Mary began to feel that some of the departing guests were following suit. As a further irritation, James no longer looked at her with that glowing, shy sort of look but fidgeted about. Normally he would have kept at her side and then stayed behind to help her clear up. Mary was puzzled. From what she had seen of her, Agatha Raisin was a stocky, plain, middle-aged woman who had had a charm bypass, so James could not possibly have transferred his attentions to her. But it was almost as if this Agatha Raisin belonged to the villagers and the village, and she, Mary did not. And, sure enough, James did not stay.
Agatha waited the next morning at Moreton-in-Marsh station for the arrival of Roy Silver. She wished in a way he were not coming, perhaps because Roy with his waspish camp manner did not fit into the comfortable ways of Carsely. But James Lacey could find nothing, well, romantic in the fact that Agatha had a man staying for the weekend. Roy was far too young, still in his twenties.
When Roy came sailing off the train dressed in black denim and talking into a mobile phone, Agatha's heart sank. Roy, satisfied at last that the few people on the station platform had noticed the young executive at work, rang off and approached Agatha.
"What have you been doing to yourself?" he asked by way of greeting. "'O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt...' Shakespeare, Aggie. Got a word for everything."
"Taught you well in the reform school?" rejoined Agatha, who hated literary quotations.
"Honestly, darling," went on Roy cheerfully, "not like you to go to seed."
"I put on a bit on my holidays," said Agatha, "but I'll soon take it off."
"Go on a diet. I'll join you," said Roy eagerly. "The fruit diet's the thing. Eat nothing but fruit for three days, and I am here for three days."
"Don't you have to be at work on Monday?"
"Got an extra day owing to me and I've got a proposition to put to you."
"Oh, Roy, I didn't know you cared. Put that case of yours with the Costa del Sol labels in the back," snapped Agatha, "and let's get a move on."
"Righty-ho. Tell you about it when we get to your place,"
Roy chattered along about the fruit diet, which he seemed determined they should both go on. Agatha drove steadily up through Bourton-on-the-Hill, noticing gloomily that there were still houses for sale, a sign that the recession was not disappearing as fast as the politicians wanted the public to think. She then turned down the long winding road which led to Carsely. There had been a heavy frost that morning, which had not yet melted. White trees leaned over the road and the whole countryside seemed still and frozen into immobility.
"Are you sure you want to go ahead with this diet?" she asked when she had ushered him into the cottage. "I've got lots of goodies for the weekend, and I'm a fair cook."
"Let's do it, Aggie. Just think how slim you'll look."
And Agatha thought of Mary Fortune and heaved a little sigh. "All right, Roy. Fruit it is."
She said a longing mental goodbye to the lunch of grilled steak and baked potatoes she had planned. That wasn't fattening, she thought, forgetting about all the sour cream and fresh butter she was going to put on the potatoes.
"Like to go along to the pub for a drink?" she asked hopefully. On Saturdays the bar of the Red Lion was covered in little dishes of cheese nibbles and pickled onions.
"Can't have alcohol or coffee," said Roy cheerfully. "We'd better go out and get some fruit."
"I have fruit," said Agatha, pointing to a full bowl of apples and oranges.
"Not enough, sweetie. Must get more."
As they approached her car parked outside in the lane, Agatha was tempted to tell Roy to forget about such a ridiculous diet. But Mary's car drew up outside James Lacey's and Mary got out wearing her favourite green. Mary cast a swift appraising look at Roy, and Agatha was suddenly conscious of Roy's youth and weediness. He had a thin white face and small clever eyes and a thin weedy body which looked as if it needed fattening up rather than dieting.
"Who's the glamour-puss?" asked Roy.
"Some incomer," said Agatha sourly. "Get in the car."
Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she had breakfasted on a cup of coffee and a cigarette.
But there was the carrot held out in front of her of an almost immediate loss of weight.
They drove to Evesham and bought apples, melons, bananas, grapes, pineapples, oranges and a selection of 'yuppie' fruit from an exotic and highly priced variety.
Back home again, they both ate as much as they could and assured each other that they felt terribly well already. Then they went out cycling, Roy borrowing a cycle from the vicarage. It was to be the best part of the weekend as they flew along the frosty lanes in the clear air, returning home under a burning red sun which set the frost-covered grass and trees aflame and made the frozen puddles in the roads burn like monsters' eyes.
But instead of sitting down that evening to a warming meal, there was nothing but more fruit and mineral water.
"What's this proposition you were talking about?" asked Agatha.
"You remember Mr Wilson of Pedmans, my boss?"
Agatha's eyes narrowed. She had sold her PR business to Pedmans. Wilson had gone back on all his assurances that her offices and staff would remain intact, had fired the staff with the exception of Roy, and had sold the offices. "Of course."
"He was talking about you the other day. Said you were the best ever. I said I was going to see you," said R
oy, carefully and conveniently forgetting that his decision to visit Agatha had been prompted after he had heard his boss's praise of her. "He said he would like to employ you as an executive. Pure Cosmetics are playing up. You used to handle them."
"Bunch of toe-rags," said Agatha moodily. Pure Cosmetics was run by a temperamental and demanding woman, a modern slave-driver.
"But that woman, Jessica Turnbull, the director of Pure Cosmetics, you could always handle her. That's what Wilson said."
"I'm retired," said Agatha. "Hey, you're spotty."
Roy squawked and ran upstairs to the bathroom. He returned and said, "I look like a fourteen-year-old with acne. You're spotty as well."
"Let's chuck this stupid diet."
"No," said Roy firmly. "It's toxic waste. The impurities are being purged out of our bodies."
"I agreed to this stupid thing to look better, not to get spotty."
"But you look slimmer already, Aggie," said Roy craftily. "Don't think about Wilson's offer now. We'll watch that video I got and then we'll have an early night."
Agatha awoke early the next day, hungry and bad-tempered. She went downstairs and gloomily ate six apples, drank a glass of mineral water, and smoked five cigarettes. The doorbell rang. She went to the door and peered through the spyhole. She recognized James Lacey's chest, which was all she could see of him.
She put her hands up to her face. She could almost feel the spots.
Agatha backed away from the door. She longed to open it, but not like this, not spotty-faced and in her dressing gown.
Outside, James turned slowly away. He had just decided it was silly to nourish a childish resentment of Agatha because she had made a rude gesture at him, and all that time ago, too. As he approached his cottage, he saw Mary's blonde head turning into the lane. Without thinking why, he quickened his step and plunged into his cottage like some large animal into its burrow, and when his own doorbell rang imperatively a few moments later, he did not answer it, persuading himself that he needed to get down to work.
He was still working on a history of the Peninsular Wars. He switched on his computer and looked gloomily at the last paragraph he'd written. Then he flicked it off and stared moodily at the screen. There was a heading saying simply, 'Case'. That was when Agatha and he had been trying to solve a murder and he had typed out all the facts and had studied them. That had been fun. It had been exciting. Perhaps Agatha was on to something new. He shook his head. No one had been murdered for miles around. Carsely was still locked in its winter's sleep. He wondered uneasily why Agatha had not answered the door. She must have been home because her car was parked outside and smoke had been rising from the chimney. That fellow Roy was staying with her. He had seen them the day before on their bicycles. There couldn't be any romantic interest there. The fellow was too young. Still, in these modern days of toy boys, one could never tell. They were probably having a high old time, laughing and joking while he sat sunk in boredom.
