When there was a reception, the field to the east of the house was opened up and all the cars were parked there. Lady Eastmore employed two full-time maids and they, together with two friends brought in for the evening, wore matching striped cotton frocks, lace-edged pinafores, and lace caps on their heads. They handed round the drinks, but food was served from long tables in the pool complex because Lady Eastmore disliked bits and pieces being dropped everywhere. Champagne — French, naturally — was offered to everyone, but those without the taste to enjoy this could ask for anything else except beer.
Decorations were standard and traditional. Coloured lights from Harrods were looped through the trees, out-of-season flowers in pots were set around the pool, thousands of rose petals were floated on the floodlit pool, and the Union Jack was hoisted on the flag-pole and illuminated.
Elvina and Tatham, Elvina driving her Fiat, arrived late, even by Mallorquin standards. The gardener, wearing a peaked cap with proud self-consciousness, directed them where to park and Elvina parked elsewhere. She climbed out and loudly demanded to know from the gardener when he was going to let her have that white poinsettia? The gardener replied that the señora must not be in a hurry, it would occur one day. He came much closer and lowered his voice in conspiratorial manner. The señor and the señora of the house were said to be going away on holiday later in the year and perhaps the white poinsettia would arrive in the señora’s garden at around that time.
As they walked out of the field, Tatham said accusingly: ‘Great Aunt Elvina, you’ve been arranging to swipe that plant.’
‘Of course,’ she answered, with composure. ‘I’ve always wanted a white one and the local garden shop had five last year, but by the time I learned about them, Mary had bought all five. She should have the manners to leave some for others.’
They went through the gateway — wrought-iron gates bearing the Eastmore crest were hung on flanking, curved brick walls — and along the path past the house to the pool, the lawn, the coloured lights, the out-of-season flowers, the floating rose petals, and the one hundred and ninety-two other guests.
Elvina, wearing a shabby cotton frock she had chosen with care, introduced Lady Eastmore to Tatham. Hearing he came from Kent, she asked him if he were related to the Tathams of Great Stour Hall and when he said he wasn’t she smiled briefly and commiseratingly, murmured a hope he would enjoy himself, and turned to speak to someone else.
A maid came up with a tray of champagne and Elvina and Tatham each took a glass. Elvina introduced Tatham to the maid, shook hands to the evident surprise of a nearby couple, asked how her family was and in particular her young sister. The maid, animated for the first time that evening, said her younger sister was now very much better after that terrible accident and it was very kind of the señora to ask.
‘You obviously get on well with the Mallorquins,’ said Tatham, after the maid had left them.
‘Of course. Provided you’re not trying to do business with them, they’re charming. And Francisca, the maid, is a special case. She’s worked to death here — none of them can stand up to Mary — and then her father demands all the money she makes and spends it on buying rubbish like television and three-piece suites and all the other things we’ve taught them to hold worthwhile. It’s a tragedy — though no one can see it. This island may have known poverty before the tourists came, but the Mallorquins had a natural dignity and they’d got their values right. Then the tourists arrived in their millions and the poverty vanished, but all the values of the people became twisted and perverted … But don’t listen to me. I’m an old woman crookedly looking back in time. Anything’s better than poverty — even television.’
‘Do many people see things as you do?’
‘Not many. All the English are concerned about is inflation and the devalued pound. Beyond that, they can’t think.’ He laughed.
‘It’s true. They’re all running away from something — taxes, neighbours, memories, suburbia, socialism — and if they think too hard, they begin to remember.’
He was running away, if only temporarily. From Jennifer’s death. Yet this island was giving him the peace even to remember that without too much hurt.
‘When I first came, I was running away from Paul’s death,’ she said, as if consciously carrying forward his thoughts. ‘But eventually I wasn’t any longer and it became my real home. I like to think I belong here, unlike them.’ She swept her hand round in a semi-circle. ‘I don’t keep demanding efficiency and trying to import other countries’ values and goods. I like the values here: inefficiency and shoddy workmanship, true, but smiles, friendship, laughter, an enjoyment of life … You see, I am as stupid and as perverse as people say I am. A moment ago I was bewailing the advent of twisted values, now I’m saying the old values still exist. Never mind. If you can’t be stupid and perverse at my age, when can you be? But never make the mistake of thinking it’s a place for someone of your age to come to live in. It’s a lotus island, suffocating enthusiasm, ambition, opposition … Everything the young should know and enjoy.’ She drained her glass.
A man of medium height, hair too curly to be entirely natural, monogram on open-necked green silk shirt, lavender linen trousers with knife-edged creases, walked up to them. ‘Elvina, dear lady, what an unexpected pleasure! I thought you never, but never, came to these simply ghastly receptions, but sat at home and cast spells? What have you been doing with yourself recently? … if that’s not a rude question.’ He tilted his head to one side.
‘That’s none of your business,’ she said briskly, her manner totally different from what it had been a moment before.
‘I do adore the way you say exactly what you think: everyone else is so circumambulatory. By the way, have you heard about Mavis?’
‘Whatever’s that silly woman been up to now?’
‘She’s gone off with the young man from the garage — that divine blond Apollo.’
‘You sound jealous?’
‘That’s very horrid of you. In future, I shan’t tell you all the interesting news. Who’s your lovely friend?’
‘Someone whom I was hoping not to have to introduce you to. John, this is Barry. John’s my great-nephew.’
‘Lovely meeting you, John. I do hope you’ve come to live amongst us?’
‘I’m only here for a short stay,’ replied Tatham. ‘Elvina’s very kindly putting me up.’
‘Wonderful! I want you to know that Elvina is one of my dearest friends. So refreshingly different. So delightfully direct. Talking to her is like a walk on the moors in a gale.’
‘You’re damn glad when it’s over,’ said Elvina drily.
‘Now, now. You’re much too sharp. I shall talk to your great-nephew — makes it sound as if he’s ten foot tall, doesn’t it? — who looks so much kinder. How do you like our island, John?’
‘It’s very lovely.’
‘Ah! Betrayed out of your own mouth as a tourist. You should know that in reality this is a positive sink of iniquity: a twentieth-century Sodom and Gomorrah.’
‘I was referring to the scenery,’ said Tatham amusedly, ‘not the morals.’
‘That! But that’s pure chocolate-box. You can’t be serious — you can’t possibly like all those horrid rocks and mountains? You really ought to talk to our poor little Penelope — that Amazon over there with such lovely billowy boobies — who paints the scenery and makes it all look like Brighton in a snowstorm. But then she suffers from bilious attacks.’
Judy, dressed in a very smart and eye-catching trouser suit, pushed past a group of people and came up to them. ‘Hallo, all.’ She wore little make-up and her jet black hair was loose.
‘Judy,’ exclaimed Barry, ‘you look simply divine! I just adore those trousers.’
‘That’s fine, so long as you go on adoring them from a distance.’
‘But why so bitchy? Haven’t we had enough champagne to mellow us?’
‘A couple of cases wouldn’t be enough to overcome this company
,’ she snapped.
‘The company? But that’s charming because it never changes. We all know everything interesting about everybody and there’s no room for surprises. I just hate surprises.’
‘I heard you had one last week you didn’t like at all.’
He looked momentarily disconcerted. ‘You’re being more than bitchy: you’re being positively catty. I can’t stay or I shall get a terrible headache. And I was having such a pleasant chat with Elvina and John who are the only intelligent people here.’ He left.
Judy said abruptly: ‘Sorry if I spoiled things, Elvina.’
‘Don’t be so silly. You know Barry. He only came to find out who John was and whether I’d taken on a gigolo. And now, after all that, you’d better meet John. My great-nephew from the side of the family I like.’
‘Hallo,’ she said offhandedly. ‘It’s the first time I knew Elvina liked any side of her family.’ She studied him. ‘So what dragged you along to this bun-fight?’
‘It was Elvina’s promise that I’d meet some charming people,’ he answered.
Elvina laughed loudly. Judy’s expression became a shade more sullen. ‘All right. Barry was right. I’m in a bitchy mood.’
‘Dare one ask why?’
‘No reason. It’s just there’s nothing to do but drink and bitch. What are you doing out here? Taking a break from the City to observe with disdain the exiles at play?’
‘I’m on a short holiday, but not from the City, and not with disdain.’
‘His fiancée was killed in rather a nasty manner,’ said Elvina with sharp belligerence. ‘Very sensibly, he asked to come and stay with me to get away from everything. And I hope he’s going to stay a long time … There’s Winnie and I must have a word with her.’ She left suddenly.
A maid came up to them with a tray of filled champagne glasses. Both of them changed an empty glass for a filled one.
‘Would you have an English cigarette on you?’ asked Judy, and her voice had lost its stridency.
He offered her a pack of Embassy.
‘All right, I’ve made an obnoxious fool of myself and I’m sorry,’ she said.
He flicked open his lighter. ‘You weren’t to know. Besides, it’s beginning to seem like a long time ago.’
‘But I could have minded my own business.’
‘According to Elvina, that’s the only thing that’s never done here.’
‘I guess she’s about right. But then we must talk about something.’
He sipped his champagne. ‘You sound as though you don’t like being out here?’
‘Like everyone else, I have a love-hate relationship with the place.’
‘And with the people?’
She laughed and the lines of discontent vanished. ‘You just have to be a newcomer to ask a question like that. We all dislike each other for various good reasons, but as there’s no one else around we have to put up with people as they are. In any case, if one’s referring to the people at this party, they’re not my usual company. I’m certainly not Mary’s idea of what a nice young lady should be.’
‘What’s she got against you?’
She studied him over the top of her glass. ‘For a pleasant, uncontaminated newcomer from England, you’re not doing too badly at being inquisitive …! In the first place, she’s quite certain my stepfather will one day do something quite unforgivable which will naturally blacken everyone in the family. In the second, I’ve never left her in any doubt that I don’t give a twopenny damn whether she leaves her visiting card, or not.’
‘Her visiting card?’
‘Surely you know this is the last remaining outpost of the British Empire where civilized standards of behaviour are strictly observed? She has visiting cards — engraved in England — and at the beginning of every year she leaves one of these on each family she will be graciously pleased to receive for the forthcoming three hundred and sixty-four days. Not to receive a card is the social kiss of death. One woman committed suicide on the second of January because she had received no visiting card — in fact, the maid had burned it.’
He smiled.
‘You don’t believe me?’
‘Not a word. You’re totally prejudiced and enjoying yourself trying to make a fool of me.’
‘All right, you ask Elvina why the Portlands left this end of the island. Dear Mary caught him pinching one of her maid’s bottoms at one of her intimate cocktail parties — he always did tend to take things literally. They were struck off the visiting list and, recognizing their utter disgrace, they scuttled away in the night.’
‘No doubt to do public penance?’
‘Maybe.’
‘If you dislike your hostess that much, why come tonight?’
‘She imports the smoked salmon direct from Scotland. I’ll sell my soul any day of the week for Scotch smoked salmon.’
‘And have you had some?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Then suppose we go in search of it?’
‘Are you saying you’ll go with me? Wouldn’t you rather have sweeter company? There’s Helen, over there, who’ll never be rude about anyone or anything.’
He saw the woman Judy indicated. ‘Perhaps. But neither will she get Paris ever to proposition her.’
‘Now that showed a bitchy sense of humour which makes me look at you in a fresh and more favourable light. Come on, then, let’s fight our way through to the smoked salmon. You can ask for four portions and with luck we’ll get enough for two.’
‘And you’ll have my share?’
‘You catch on fast.’ She led the way through the swirling crowd of people, past the floodlit, rose-petalled swimming pool and the out-of-season pot plants, to the dining area in the pool complex where the food was set out on several tables.
*
Tatham drove Elvina’s Fiat 128 the three kilometres into Llueso and parked in the square. He climbed out and looked up as a small flock of pigeons, alarmed by something, flew with a clatter of wings and were outlined first against the mountains and then the blue sky. It was a picture-postcard scene of quiet, lazy, sleepy peace. Yet Elvina said the Mallorquins had explosive tempers which could suddenly shatter the deepest peace. And during the Civil War there had been times of barbarous brutality: men dragged from their homes and taken up into the quiet, brooding mountains and shot because they had professed some sympathy with the Republicans, or they were owed money by those who shot, or they owned possessions which others wanted. Deep down, human nature didn’t change, whether on a dreamy Mediterranean island or an English high street.
He walked from the square to the post-office and asked the man behind the counter, in one of the two Spanish phrases he had mastered, if there were any mail for Ca’n Manin. The man, smiling with pleasure because Tatham had bothered to try to speak Spanish, gave him four letters: one of these was for him from his mother. He returned to the car, sat down, and read the letter. His father had just sold a painting for more money than ever before, so they’d celebrated with a wonderful meal at the White Feathers. He smiled. His father believed money had only one use, spending. Within a couple of weeks, he’d be as short of money as ever and completely untroubled by the fact, while his mother would somehow manage. The letter finished up by saying that Mrs Payne had had to go into hospital for an operation.
Jennifer’s mother had been complaining of bad health for some time, he remembered: the operation might prove a serious one. He visualized her as he had last seen her at the funeral and then he tried to visualize Jennifer, but he gained only a general impression without specific features, like an image from a dream. What would Jennifer have said about his spending so much of the previous evening with Judy? Had he been wrong to do so? But that was clearly being ridiculous. His grief at Jennifer’s death was no less sincere because he had enjoyed talking to the black-haired, cynically amusing Judy.
He started the engine, backed out, turned, and drove out on to the Palma road rather than risk going through the back streets of Llues
o which, narrow and without pavements, were totally unadapted to modern traffic needs.
Back at the house he handed Elvina her three letters and she suggested he pour out drinks for them. When he returned to the sitting-room and sat down, immediately under the large wrought-iron chandelier, she laid down the letter she’d been reading and looked at him and seemed about to speak, but finally did not and returned to reading the letter.
He drank, lit a cigarette, and stared through the window beyond the dining-recess. A greenfinch sat on the windowsill and pecked at the bird seed she put out each morning. After a while, probably with crop full to bursting, it flew off and sat in the branches of a plum tree. He picked up the book of wild flowers of South-West Europe and leafed through it, noting with surprise how many varieties Elvina had found — by each flower discovered on the island was written the exact spot and date. She loved to portray herself as a crabby old widow, he thought, but she had far too many interests in life for her ever to be that. She drove all over the island, seeking fresh species of flowers, and at the moment was in correspondence with the authors of this book over a plant which she had seen and which might be an entirely new species. She had a great interest in archaeology and studied many of the artefacts found in the talayots. She had carried out a one-woman census on the black vulture population of the eastern end of the island which had led to some spirited arguments with a Palma ornithologist …
Mistakenly in Mallorca (An Inspector Alvarez Mystery Book 1) Page 5
