Au Reservoir

by Guy Fraser-Sampson

  ‘I really hadn’t thought about that,’ Elizabeth replied, almost convincingly, ‘I was just trying to find a way for us to take part in the tournament.’

  ‘But doesn’t that mean,’ the Major persisted like a dog with a bone, ‘that we’re likely to do well? Why, with professional bridge players as partners we might even win the damn thing.’

  ‘I suppose it’s always possible,’ his wife replied archly. ‘Why, would you like to win, Benjy?’

  ‘A cash prize? Rather!’

  The Major imagined being handed a pile of banknotes. Instantly they seemed to grow fuzzy, and transform themselves into a van from his wine merchants arriving at Glebe and disgorging cases of whisky, claret and port. Puffing contentedly at his pipe, he watched the delivery men carry case after case into the house, and slipped his arm around the slender waist of a beautiful Indian woman clad in a sari. Responding to his touch, she nestled contentedly closer …

  ‘Well, let’s see,’ Elizabeth said, breaking in upon his reverie.

  As the pavement narrowed and her substantial hips swung towards him, the Major stepped resignedly into the road.

  That afternoon Elizabeth Mapp-Flint boarded the train to Hastings, where she visited the public library, a much larger and more fully stocked resource than the one which nestled in a side street in Tilling. She scoured the shelves of periodicals and after much effort managed to find a bridge magazine which was no more than about six months old. Seizing upon it, she sat down at a table and began poring over its contents.

  The articles she found frankly incomprehensible. What was all this nonsense about ‘second player plays low’? Suppose one has the winning card? And anyway, to play low was surely to put an overdue amount of trust in one’s partner, always a reckless undertaking in Elizabeth Mapp-Flint’s opinion. As for ‘signalling’, what on earth was that all about? She had thought it was frowned upon to communicate with one’s partner as to what lead was expected, though she had been known occasionally to gaze intently at her ring (meaning ‘diamonds’) or cough and tap herself on the chest (‘hearts’). Her system at least had the benefit of being straightforward and therefore capable of being readily understood. The one proposed, of using high and low cards, struck her as nonsensical. Who watched what cards their partner played anyway? She snorted with derision (an effect at which she was well practised and thus carried off with a fair amount of style) and turned to the notices at the back.

  Here she perused advertisements for bridge clubs, bridge lessons and plaintive appeals for lady bridge partners from single gentlemen of a refined disposition with an interest in rambling, figure drawing and Indian art.

  With a little ‘Ah-ha!’ of triumph, she finally fell greedily upon what she was looking for. Taking writing paper and envelopes from her handbag, she carefully wrote out the same letter twice, addressed the envelopes and put them back in her bag. After a moment’s thought, and a quick glance to see if anyone was watching, she bagged the magazine as well. It wasn’t as though she actually wanted it, but it was always possible that fellow bridge players from Tilling might be similarly inclined to visit Hastings in search of inspiration, and it would be foolish to leave it lying around in plain sight. The fact that the library might possess a whole shelf of books about bridge happily never occurred to her, since a much larger bag would have been required.

  Leaving the library and walking back towards the station, she wondered if she might spend an agreeable few hours in Hastings before returning to Tilling in time for dinner. As if in answer to her prayers, a cinema hove into view advertising a Clark Gable film. After glancing around furtively, for she was known never to visit ‘picture palaces’ as she persisted in calling them (though before her marriage she had done so at least once a week), she entered and bought a one and ninepenny ticket for the stalls. She could have sat in the circle for half a crown but she had already bought a railway ticket that day, and anyway the loss of the ten shilling coach deposit still rankled.

  She settled expectantly into her place, noticing that cinema seats seemed now to be manufactured in a much narrower form than before the war. Why, it was hardly wide enough to accommodate even her normal sized frame; what would happen if someone overweight was involved? Surreptitiously removing her shoes to ease the pressure on her corns, she gazed at the screen and prepared to surrender herself to the best forbidden fruit that Hollywood could supply. As she did so, she reflected happily on the fact that Major Benjy and Clark Gable really did look awfully similar. Perhaps this was only to be expected. After all, they both had a rather dashing moustache. They also both had false teeth.

  Chapter 18

  The Saturday afternoon sun was beginning to lose its heat but none of its lustre when the sound of the Rolls outside heralded the arrival of the fête-goers. Lucia looked up as Olga swept into the living room, followed closely by Noël Coward, who had opened the door for her, then Gielgud, then Georgie. Foljambe hovered nervously around them while Olga introduced Coward and Gielgud to Lucia, wondering whether Miss Bracely might wish to dispense with her hat. Outside Denny, who had come down by train during the afternoon, was helping Cadman with the suitcases.

  ‘My dear,’ Noël said, fixing Foljambe with a rather wan smile, ‘I wonder if you might bring two dry martinis.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ she said doubtfully with a bob, glancing at Lucia.

  ‘Of course!’ the latter enthused, trying to look as though her house guests always drank hard liquor at five o’clock in the afternoon.

  ‘Why, Noël, how clever of you!’ Olga observed, rather loudly to Lucia’s way of thinking. ‘How did you know that’s exactly what I wanted?’

  ‘Oh, do you want one too?’ he asked distractedly. ‘In that case, dear minion, you’d better make it three.’

  As Foljambe scurried away, Lucia asked:

  ‘Why, Mr Coward, do you normally drink two cocktails at once?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about him, my dear lady,’ Gielgud said dismissively. ‘He’s upset that he only came third in the Noël Coward look-alike competition.’

  Lucia made one of her characteristic little noises that somehow managed to convey dismay, regret, sympathy and indignation rapidly in turn.

  ‘In point of fact, Johnnie, I came last,’ Noël replied crisply, screwing a cigarette into his holder rather viciously. ‘You may remember that there were only three contestants, including myself.’

  ‘And jolly sporting it was of you to join in,’ Olga interjected quickly. ‘Why without you there would only have been two, and that really wouldn’t have been a competition at all, would it?’

  ‘Ah yes, I remember now,’ said Gielgud blandly, gazing vacantly out of the window, ‘the organiser was very grateful.’

  ‘And so he deuced well ought to have been,’ added Olga.

  ‘Yes,’ Gielgud said, turning to face Lucia, ‘he thanked Noël for his efforts, but said he knew for a fact that the real Noël Coward was altogether a much younger and slimmer man.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Lucia said judiciously after a pregnant pause, reaching for the bell, ‘it might be best to ask Foljambe just to bring a tray of martinis.’

  ‘Cheer up, Noël,’ Olga entreated him. ‘After all, it was for charity.’

  ‘I do a great deal for charity,’ Coward averred, inspecting his cigarette and holder with a faintly quizzical air.

  ‘Really?’ Gielgud queried dubiously.

  ‘Indeed I do,’ Coward relied, pausing to light up. ‘In fact,’ he said, exhaling a wreath of smoke (Turkish, Georgie noted with appreciation), ‘I am never happier than when in the company of those less fortunate than myself.’

  Olga gurgled with laughter. Lucia winced. Gielgud gave a wry little smile, and Georgie said ‘Oh, I say’ in appreciation, and clapped one hand on the back of the other.

  ‘Do you know,’ Gielgud mused openly, ‘that in all the many times I have heard Noël tell that joke, I have never heard him tell it better.’

  An awkward pause then ensued,
during which Foljambe came and went away again, charged with new orders.

  ‘By the way,’ Georgie announced, changing the subject rather deftly he felt, ‘you’ll never guess what happened at the end of the fête, Lucia.’

  ‘Apart from the lookalike competition?’ Gielgud murmured.

  ‘Do tell, Georgino mio,’ commanded Lucia.

  ‘Well, the coach turned up fifteen minutes early. Naturally I remonstrated with the driver, but he was adamant that he had been booked to return to Tilling at 4.45, so there it was. I asked him to wait, of course, but the surly brute refused, saying that he had to get home for his tea. It was really all very tarsome.’

  ‘How irritating,’ Lucia sympathised. ‘Yet you were definitely in the right, Georgie, for I distinctly remember ordering the return journey for five o’clock.’

  ‘Well, that was the really strange thing,’ Georgie continued. ‘You see, in the end I did get him to wait until five o’clock, though the Mapp-Flints were all for getting on the coach and leaving – seemed very keen indeed, actually.’

  ‘And how did you do that, my dear?’ Lucia enquired.

  ‘They say that money talks,’ Olga explained, ‘so Georgie did some whispering. A quid wasn’t it, Georgie?’

  ‘Yes, well, never mind that,’ Georgie said, ‘that’s not important.’

  ‘I beg to differ, caro mio,’ Lucia objected. ‘Half a crown would have been quite sufficient, surely?’

  ‘Ah, but you should have been there,’ Gielgud orated to a nonexistent gallery. ‘Your husband was magnificent. Quite masterful, in fact.’

  This time Georgie did not beg people to disregard the remark.

  ‘Well, anyway,’ he pressed on with what he hoped people would regard as a masterful yet modest simper, ‘the thing is, the thing I was trying to tell you about, that just after I let the coach go with everybody on it, I was walking across the field to where Cadman had parked the car, when what do I see but another coach arriving, and I suddenly realised that it was identical to the one I had seen arrive at lunchtime, whereas now I came to think of it the earlier coach had been quite different.’

  He paused for breath, and was gratified to note that the assembled party were gazing at him with a mixture of puzzlement and interest. All except Noël Coward, that is, who was looking somewhat bored with proceedings, though Olga could have told Georgie that this was simply Noël’s habitual expression while awaiting his afternoon martini.

  ‘No!’ Lucia ejaculated in good Tilling manner. ‘A mystery, Georgie. Do say that you investigated. I couldn’t bear to hear that you simply got into the Rolls and went home.’

  ‘Not at all!’ Georgie said, nettled that his detective instincts were being maligned. ‘I went across and spoke to the driver, and he was clearly driving our coach. He checked his job sheet, or whatever they call it, and it said Pillson as the name of the customer.’

  ‘Isn’t it dreadful?’ said Olga. ‘It means everyone must have got on the wrong coach and ended up heaven knows where. I’m afraid there may be quite a few late arrivals for your dinner party this evening. All except the Wyses, of course, they had the Royce.’

  ‘But where, I wonder?’ Lucia mused.

  ‘Well, we think Hastings is the best bet,’ Georgie replied. ‘When I thought about it really hard I could remember seeing the word “Hastings” quite clearly on the side of the coach, and come to think of it I believe there was another word beginning with “H” as well, though I’m not sure.’

  ‘Dear me,’ Lucia commented. ‘Well, we must just await events. But do tell me the extent to which our little stratagem succeeded.’

  ‘Parfectly,’ warbled Georgie contentedly. ‘Well, at first of course I didn’t see anything of the Mapp-Flints because I had to give my little speech and open the fête.’

  ‘I’m so sorry I had to miss that,’ Olga said, with such obvious sincerity that Georgie felt something do a little somersault in his abdomen.

  ‘Yes, well,’ he went on after taking a deep breath to compose himself, ‘Mrs Campbell was really very gracious. I thought she might be a bit stand-offish seeing as I was only her third choice candidate, so to speak, but she was very nice.’

  ‘So I should hope, Georgie,’ said Lucia severely, ‘after all her carryings-on.’

  ‘And then she wanted to introduce me to all sorts of people, and Lucia you would have been proud of me because – guess what? – the Bishop was there and I remembered to call him “my lord”, and the Mayor of Tenterden, and of course I knew to call him “your worship”, oh and some sort of Catholic priest with a big purple sash and I took a guess and called him “monsignor”, which seemed to go down all right.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware the Bishop was going to be there,’ Lucia exclaimed in surprise. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He complimented me on my lilac waistcoat and matching spats, actually,’ Georgie replied, blushing, ‘and said what a jolly good job I had done opening the fête. He said he got asked to open all sorts of things. In fact, he was telling me that he once got asked to bless an organ in Tilling, and had to drink barley water at lunchtime.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Luica asked innocuously. ‘Did he make the connection, do you think? The “Pillson” name, I mean?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Georgie assured her hastily. ‘Anyway, then he asked me where I came from and I thought it better to say that I had just come down from London for the day.’

  ‘Bravo, Georgie,’ she said approvingly. ‘You have done well.’

  ‘And then I reminded him what a good job the Padre had done in helping to organise the fête at such short notice, and at a distance too, and Mrs Campbell jumped in and said she didn’t know what the committee would have done without him. Then she sort of stared at him jolly hard until he turned to his curate and asked him to make a note of it.’

  Just for a moment Lucia regretted the fact that she had not chosen to settle in Tenterden. Mrs Campbell sounded as if she would have made a worthy adversary.

  ‘Bravo, Georgie indeed!’ Olga whooped. ‘Not just a diplomat, but a politician too!’

  ‘Very good,’ Lucia said, a trifle less enthusiastically. ‘But what happened then?’

  ‘I finally broke free of all the guests of honour,’ he explained, ‘but all that must have taken about twenty minutes or so. Then I went looking for our friends from Tilling.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, first I saw Irene, who was at the shooting gallery and doing jolly well too, so far as I could tell, but then I saw you-know-who in the distance talking to some people I’d never met before. So I sort of sidled up behind them, just in time to hear them saying what a pity it was that Noël Coward hadn’t been able to open the fête, but just then one of the others caught sight of me and broke into the conversation to say how jolly nice they thought my speech had been, so of course Mapp saw me and clammed up.’

  ‘A shame, Georgie, of course,’ Lucia said, ‘but it sounds like you did your best.’

  ‘No, but wait,’ he said excitedly. ‘Then I wandered off to look round the side shows. I thought it was sort of part of my official duties somehow.’

  Lucia nodded magisterially in approval.

  ‘Well, just as I was trying to extricate myself from some ghastly woman who was trying to sell me toffee and nougat, the Wyses came across me and I could tell Susan was really quite upset, so I asked what was wrong.’

  ‘And?’ prompted Olga.

  ‘Susan was really too overwrought to reply, but Mr Wyse said that Mrs Mapp-Flint had been making quite unnecessary remarks about Mrs Pillson having pretended to know Noël Coward but it was all a lie, and she had been exposed because she hadn’t been able to get him to come to the fête after all.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Lucia with mock solemnity, ‘I fear “quite unnecessary remarks” is rather strong language for Mr Wyse.’

  ‘There’s more,’ Georgie said. ‘He went on to say that he thought her remarks to be in particularly poor taste as she was enjoying Lucia�
��s generosity in providing transportation to and from Tenterden. Then Susan took her handkerchief away from her mouth and said that it was really just like Elizabeth, and wasn’t it all too bad. Then Mr Wyse bowed and took Susan off to the bar tent.’

  ‘No!’ chorused Lucia and Olga, the only two present who were familiar with these particular responses.

  ‘Yes, he jolly well did,’ Georgie confirmed, ‘and you know that he never usually drinks anything stronger than lemonade during the day.’

  ‘And what happened, pray, when Elizabeth saw Mr Coward?’ Lucia asked.

  ‘Well, that’s the really funny thing,’ he said. ‘I don’t think she had realised that there was a Noël Coward lookalike competition – sorry, Noël – and she caught sight of one of the contestants and she went as white as a sheet.’

  ‘Oh, priceless,’ Olga declared, ‘and then what?’

  ‘Well, I decided to be very naughty and went up to her and asked if she knew Noël Coward was there and wasn’t it wonderful, but by that time someone had told her about the competition and so she laughed and said very contemptuously that we must think her pretty dense if we thought she’d fall for a trick like that.’

  ‘And was that just before –’ asked Olga.

  ‘Yes, isn’t it wonderful? That was just before you came up to me with Noël, having just arrived, and I introduced Noël to Elizabeth.’

  ‘No!’ said Lucia. ‘Oh, tell me, Georgie, tell me.’

  ‘Well,’ said Georgie, both he and Olga subsiding into giggles, ‘she just stared at him, said “Nothing like him,” and strode off, dragging Benjy after her.’

  Vulgar though Georgie and Olga’s laughter undoubtedly was, Lucia felt compelled to join in, and as she laughed she felt the pent-up emotions and difficulties of the last few weeks draining away. Lucia was back where she belonged, and her star was once more in the ascendant.

  ‘I must say,’ commented Coward, ‘that it was hardly the most effusive greeting I have ever received, but perhaps one day I shall begin to see the humour in the situation.’