You had to hand it to her, she might be the fastest off the blocks when it came to snuggling up to someone else’s husband, but she certainly knew how to put on a good spread. She had set up four or five long tables under the shade of a row of chestnut trees. The tables were wonderfully laid out with intricately folded napkins and tiny little flower arrangements, but what I found most impressive was that Solange appeared to have a set of matching china and napkins for more than forty people and hadn’t had to resort to begging, borrowing or stealing anything. Even the chairs were a matching set. She had turned down Janey’s offer to help with the food, apart from requesting a couple of her special puddings. Janey was so talented at desserts, Solange had cooed, unlike her, but of course she didn’t really know what went into making a good dessert since she never touched sweet things. This information was accompanied, Janey later reported, by a meaningful look at her waistline.
Solange clapped her hands and announced that lunch was served and we should sit where we liked. Despite this apparent spontaneity I couldn’t help noticing the masterly way she peeled off all the most entertaining men to come and sit at her own table. She’d included Tom in that number but punished him for his former neglect by sending him down to the Siberia at the bottom of the table while a heavy-featured négociant from Bordeaux and Robert were assigned the favoured places on either side of her. I’d had my elbow firmly grasped by George who bore me off to sit by him, though I was amused to see that Sally had been just as quick off the mark in claiming the place on his other side. She was looking very pretty; the sun had brought out red lights in her hair and dusted a light smattering of freckles over her nose and chest like a sprinkling of that exorbitantly expensive gold sparkle stuff that gets sold at Christmas each year. I caught George giving her a quick sideways look and decided thankfully that it probably wouldn’t be long before he reverted to his belief that we were not the perfect couple and realise that there were plenty of more suitable fish in the sea.
At a particularly loud burst of laughter from the table behind us he asked me with a slightly superior air, ‘Aren’t those men sitting with Venetia two of the Australians who latched on to us the other night?’ I was surprised he hadn’t realised before. Carlton’s idea of the right things to say when chatting up a Sheila must have been audible to half the garden. Fortunately Venetia didn’t appear to mind being compared to a wombat. ‘Tom must be really desperate if he’s had to resort to using her casual pick-ups in his team,’ he said with a hearty laugh.
‘He is. Solomon’s better at fielding - or should I say retrieving the ball - but Tom thought that Carlton just made it on the batting,’ I said, dead pan.
George looked at me as if I was quite mad, and turned to talk to Sally.
When the last cups of inky strong coffee in tiny cups had been served and cleared away, Napier announced that the fun part of the afternoon was about to begin. A good proportion of the party, including some of the players, looked as if they would infinitely prefer to stretch out on a long chair and sleep off Solange’s immaculately presented lunch rather than watch leather hitting willow (or missing it as the case might be). No one had the courage to admit it so we all dutifully removed ourselves to the cricket pitch, a field that was normally used for sheep, and arranged ourselves beneath the trees along one side of it. Napier’s gardener had been on tractor-mowing duty every day for the last fortnight, hence the grass was in an immaculate condition, but some of the other accoutrements were not of the type usually seen at top-class cricket matches. For a scoreboard they were using a blackboard and easel pinched off Napier’s opening batsman’s five-year-old daughter. Since it was too small to see easily Sally had been delegated to walk around the spectators every so often holding up cards marked with the runs and wickets taken as if she were a bellhop in a hotel foyer.
I can’t honestly say that I paid much attention to the progress of the cricket match, even though I knew I was undoubtedly going to be asked by more than one person if I’d seen the brilliant way he’d hit this or bowled that. I had gained enough experience of making equivocal answers to questions of this sort while not watching George’s genius at work to be confident I could manage to conceal that I’d spent most of this titanic match stretched out peacefully under a tree chatting to various like-minded souls. Even so, there were times when I couldn’t avoid noticing what was going on, like when Oscar and the man with the large stomach were both running to get the ball; the fat man had a surprising turn of speed which was where Oscar made his mistake. He nearly got steamrollered. Or when, as Hugh was about to go in to bat, Janey leaned forward and whispered something in Kerry’s ear. With much giggling Kerry moved forward to a sunny spot on the edge of the pitch and undid several buttons on her blouse, sliding it half off her shoulders before slowly anointing herself with suntan cream. Even from this distance we could see Hugh’s head swivel around and his eyes goggle frantically.
Hugh didn’t get a high score.
‘We should have got you to do that too, but it’s too late now,’ said Sally as George, all padded up and raring to go, strode purposefully onto the pitch.
‘Wouldn’t have worked. George takes the game far too seriously to be sidetracked by a woman. And even if he could be distracted, it wouldn’t be me who could do it.’ I paused deliberately. ‘Far more likely to be you.’
‘Me?’ she said, and stared out at the pitch as if she was committing every detail of how George was holding his bat to memory. Maybe she was.
‘Judging by the way he was eyeing you up during lunch, yes, you.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Why should I mind?’ I asked cheerfully. ‘Has Oscar been filling you in on how George and I go together as naturally as Astaire and Rogers?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Just remember they broke up. And didn't get back together again.’
She raised her head and looked at me with a conspiratorial grin. Then she sort of shook herself and said in a prim little voice, ‘Not that it matters who George is or isn’t going out with, though it’s very flattering if he fancies me. I’ve got my hands full with Charlie.’ That was a strange way of putting it.
‘Mm, sure,’ I agreed, ‘but it’s always nice to know you can still wow the odd man, isn’t it? Not that George is odd of course,’ I added hastily. ‘In fact, he’s positively...’ I’d been about to say conventional, but decided another adjective would be more appealing. I floundered around. ‘Normal,’ I ended up with, thinking that didn’t seem very satisfactory either.
Luckily Sally didn’t appear to notice for Maggie was waving frantically for her to come over and she got up with a vague, ‘See you later, Nella.’ But it was said in a much more cordial tone than usual. I watched her go hoping that I’d managed to throw some seeds on fertile ground anyway. At least she was perfectly placed as a cry of ‘Howzat!’ arose and Robert raised his arm to indicate that George was out. George looked pretty peeved about it too and I thought for a moment that he was about to commit the unpardonable sin of arguing with the umpire. Instead he stumped off, looking martyred. I hope he found the consolatory hand Sally laid on his arm as he left the pitch some balm to his wounded feelings.
Despite George’s early dismissal the Château du Pré team had a formidable score to beat when they took to the pitch after tea. Tom looked determined to do his best but already bore a defeated air, especially after his first two batsmen fell victim to George’s lethal bowling.
‘You’re in for a gloomy dinner tonight,’ I said to Venetia who was stretched out on the grass beside me, chin resting on her hands and apparently paying keen attention to what was going on in front of us. In fact she’d been burbling on about driving back to London with Robert on Tuesday and wondering if there was going to be anyone around in Town for her to see. By luck I happened to be looking when Oscar was bowled out; at least I’d be able to make some sympathetic noises and say, truthfully for once, that I’d actually seen it. ‘This is be
ginning to look like a massacre,’ I whistled as Matt trudged off the pitch after achieving the grand total of six. Considering how his predecessors had done, it wasn’t too bad.
‘There’s still Carlton. He might be on better form than he was yesterday,’ Venetia said, then as Tom began to look around with an increasingly frantic air, she added, ‘but where is he? Or Oz? Carl was saying they didn’t get to bed until six this morning. I hope they aren’t catching up on their kip somewhere. If they don’t turn up I’m going to stay with you lot at the cottage tonight. In fact, you’ll have to do my packing for me, Nella. I’m certainly not going anywhere near Daddy. I know exactly who’ll get the blame for this!’ she wailed as Tom gave an exasperated sigh and called to the fat man in the Bermudas to get up from the deck chair where he’d been relaxing with a newspaper over his face and come and get the pads on.
The fat man opened his eyes and looked at Tom in horror. Tom shrugged with a ‘there’s nothing I can do about it’ expression. George stood in the middle of the pitch like a white-flannelled Nemesis, rubbing the ball on his arm in a meaningful manner. Idly I wondered if there was a ‘stomach before wicket’ rule as well as an LBW.
Just then, a bellow came from off the pitch and Carlton belted into view, wearing a pair of baggy bright blue swimming trunks and a smear of sun block on his nose, shaking water off his shaggy hair as he ran. ‘Sorry, mate, I was in the pool, forgot the time,’ he panted as the fat man ripped off the pads and handed them over with every expression of relief.
Venetia giggled as Carlton hastily did up the pads over his bare legs. ‘He’s much easier on the eye than dear fat old Fred Barlow, isn’t he?’ she murmured. Carlton stripped down very nicely indeed, as we all had plenty of opportunity to observe. He tied his hair back in a pony tail with what looked like one of Venetia’s scrunchies, shoved bare feet into his shoes, and picked up the bat. George smirked at this apparition and began shifting from side to side like a Spanish bull preparing to charge - one quick strike and it would all be over.
‘I can’t bear to look!’ moaned Venetia, fingers laced across her eyes as George started his run. There was an almighty crack and her head shot up to see the ball fly off the field like a rocket, nearly clipping Hugh’s ear as it whizzed past. His attention had once more been fatally distracted by Kerry, who was carefully applying more suntan cream - this time to her thighs, her skirt bunched right up to hip level. He missed catching it by about an inch.
As he disappeared red-faced into the vines to retrieve the ball, Venetia said faintly, ‘Gosh! I might escape being disinherited after all. He said he played a beaut game of cricket when his eye was in, didn’t he? Let’s pray it lasts.’
It seemed it might. Carlton continued to slam a steady stream of balls in every direction and the gradual rising of spirits from the Château du Pré team was almost visible as first, they realised it wasn’t going to be an ignominious walk-over after all; then, that their score might be respectable; then, as a four made it over the boundary, that it was just possible it could be a close run thing - perhaps even a draw. Even I began to pay attention. Janey looked as if all her fingernails had been sacrificed to tension a long time ago, Maggie was gripping herself with excitement at every run and Sally was looking distinctly torn.
Venetia sighed happily. ‘He’s really very good-looking, isn’t he?’ she said. For a moment I wasn’t sure who she was talking about, then realised she was gazing at the umpire. ‘Money isn’t everything, is it?’ she went on. ‘I mean, I know love in a garret is infinitely more difficult than love in a mansion, but there is a happy medium, isn’t there? It’s not as if we’d be stony broke and I suppose Robert could always start earning a packet some time in the future.’
‘You could always start earning a packet,’ I pointed out in the interests of equality.
‘I doubt it. Not unless some kind person wants to pay me for being decorative and useless,’ she said frankly. ‘But there are some people you just wouldn’t mind being poor with, aren’t there?’
‘Er, yes,’ I agreed, not quite sure why I was feeling so uncomfortable with the way this conversation was going. I was also dead certain that Venetia and I had two completely different definitions of what ‘poor’ meant.
‘Ooh look!’ she exclaimed as Sally walked past, holding the latest score aloft. ‘We’re only ten runs short! Eleven and we’ve won! Oh no!’
Oz, who had proved to be much better than he’d claimed, had been caught behind. ‘That’s it then,’ said Venetia despondently. ‘The only man Daddy’s got left is Fred and he’s never stayed in longer than second ball, that’s why he’s always last man.’
Fred Barlow looked as appalled to be pulled out of his deck chair again as the rest of his team-mates did. Then Venetia brightened. ‘But look, as it’s a new over Carlton’s getting the ball. We might still do it.’
She was biting her knuckles with tension, hardly able to speak as Carlton slammed the ball again for another four. ‘Careful,’ she pleaded. ‘Don’t get over-confident and get caught! Careful... careful... well done ... pity... oh nearly... oh no! We lose by one run.’
The prospect of the match slipping out of his grasp had lent wings to Napier’s heels and he’d raced for the ball, returning it to George so quickly that Carlton had made only a single run instead of the two he’d been expecting.. An apprehensive Fred Barlow was left to face George and the last ball of the match.
George roared up to his mark like an express train and let fly. Fred closed his eyes and hit out at random. The ball snicked off the bat and flew over the wicket-keeper’s head. Fred stared at it in total disbelief until Carlton yelled, ‘Move it!’ and charged down the pitch. Fred wound himself up and began lumbering towards the bowler’s end as Hugh scooped up the ball and threw it at George.
‘Run!’ screamed Venetia above the shouts of both teams and the spectators.
‘Come on, Fred!’ yelled Janey, jumping up and down with excitement.
‘He’ll never make it,’ muttered someone behind me in a tone of gloom. Then suddenly Fred was airborne, diving full length like a mighty torpedo, bat held out in front of him. The ball hit the stumps, sending the bails cartwheeling into the air, at exactly the same moment that Fred hit the ground like half a ton of nutty slack.
There was a terrible silence, broken only by a wheezy groan from the prostrate batsman as everyone looked at the umpire. He shook his head slowly and grinned broadly - not out.
‘It’s a draw!’ cried Janey ecstatically and raced onto the pitch, dragging Fred to his feet, which says something about the strengthening powers of delight, before giving him a smacking kiss of congratulation. Within seconds, the still-winded Fred was surrounded by a crowd of cheering players and spectators.
To do him credit it took Napier only a few seconds to force a smile to his lips and clap a gleeful Tom on the back. ‘Well done, old chap! Never thought you’d do it.’
‘Neither did I,’ Tom said candidly.
‘Well, you might not have done if there hadn’t been one or two rather tough calls from the umpire,’ said Napier, turning to give Robert a very hard stare. ‘Particularly with some of the no ball calls on George’s bowling.’
Robert smiled in a particularly shark-like manner. ‘Tough, but just, Napier. George was kind enough to think of the good of the game the other night and tell me some of the lesser known rules. He’s too much of a good sport to have wanted me to bend the rules in his favour.’ Napier looked as if he might dispute the point, but Solange, who had been all over the Bordeaux négociant a few minutes ago, now slipped in between the two team captains and linked her arms through theirs, though her hand rested lightly on Napier’s arm and it might just have been possible to run a knife through the gap separating her from Tom, though I doubted it. ‘Now, now, there is nothing more boring than undertaking a match like this,’ she announced brightly.
Not surprisingly this statement was met with a certain amount of surprise and blank misunderstanding. After a
pause Janey said, ‘I think that what Solange means is endless post mortems. I agree with her,’ she added, though she looked as if the effort of agreeing with Solange was akin to sucking a lemon.
‘Yes, yes, that is what I mean,’ Solange said. ‘The only thing we ’ave to discuss is that sanglier. You can’t both ’ave it so ’oo will?’ She cuddled even closer, if that were possible, to Tom and turned a winning smile up towards him.
‘Ruddy hell,’ muttered Janey, who had been watching this display with intense disfavour. ‘As if Tom would really part with that blessed sanglier for a few dropped h’s! Tell you what,’ she called over, ‘as it’s a draw, why don’t you both have it for six months each?’
Tom nodded while Solange pouted prettily. ‘And as Napier hasn’t seen much of it in recent years,’ he sent his rival a self-satisfied smile, ‘he can have it for the first six months.’
Napier quite properly ignored the first part of this remark and merely said, ‘Very decent of you, old chap. Now shall we all have a drink to celebrate a good match?’
It seemed that he had been prepared to celebrate a not so good match too, for the moment we all appeared outside the house Solange’s army of helpers began to stream out with trays of glasses and ready chilled bottles of champagne for us to toast the players, most especially the man of the match - Fred Barlow, still looking stunned by his achievement. I think we would have been there ‘undertaking the match’, as Solange would have it, and generally gossiping for hours if the sky hadn’t begun to darken in an ominous way, presaging one of the violent summer storms so common in the area and we all decided to leave before it broke.
Up To No Good Page 19
