Enough to Kill a Horse (2 page)

Kit Raven, at thirty, was a stockily-built, wide-shouldered young man of medium height, with long, heavily-muscled arms and big, square-palmed craftsman’s hands. His hair was yellow, his eyes were a cheerful blue, his skin was ruddy. A fullness about the cheeks and a heaviness about the chin, which gave his face a certain resemblance to his sister’s, suggested that later, like her, he would put on weight, but for the present his waist was still slender and his walk light and quick. There was good nature in his face and a look of common sense and humour. Only occasionally the blue eyes betrayed confusion and a deep self-distrust. If he was not handsome, he was, as Fanny had learnt many years earlier, very attractive to women.

‘Hallo,’ he said, picking up the envelope from the arm of Fanny’s chair, and reading what she had written. ‘Making plans for the party?’

‘Yes, and I thought you might order the things for me this morning,’ she said.

‘I haven’t time for that,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to get over to that sale at Chedbury.’

‘This would only take a few minutes.’

Kit hated to be involved in domestic matters.

‘You haven’t written down how much you want of anything,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have the faintest idea what to order. And lobster – you’re going to make your lobster thingummies, are you? Will you want it fresh or tinned?’

‘Fresh, of course,’ Fanny said.

‘Well, I haven’t the faintest idea how to buy lobster, except in tins,’ Kit said, handing the envelope back.

‘There’s no hurry, anyway. You’ve got half the week. Who’s coming?’

‘The man Poulter.’

‘I know. And Clare?’

‘Yes, though she seemed to get scared when I told her I’d actually fixed it.’

‘Why d’you suppose she’s so keen to meet him?’ Kit asked curiously. ‘D’you think she wants to persuade him to give her a job on one of his papers?’

‘Good God, no!’ Fanny said. ‘All Clare will ever do is write the same story about her own fantastic family over and over again, getting more and more obscure and distinguished as time goes on.’

‘But suppose she’s short of money,’ Kit said. ‘Those books can’t bring in much.’

‘More than you’d think,’ Fanny said. ‘But if she were short of money, which I’m sure she isn’t, she’d drown herself before she thought of journalism.’

‘Then why does she want to meet Poulter?’

‘One can never guess Clare’s reasons. But at least she’s going to drive Laura down in the morning, so you’d better write to Laura and tell her so.’

‘Fine,’ Kit said. ‘Whom else have you asked?’

‘No one, yet. But I’m going to ask the Gregorys, of course, and probably the McLeans and – and perhaps the Mordues.’ Over the last name she hesitated for an instant.

Kit frowned a little.

‘If you ask old Mordue, nobody else will come,’ he said.

‘I know. It’s difficult, isn’t it? But I can’t help asking them, can I?’ Fanny’s gaze rested again on the photograph of Laura Greenslade, shadowed by the yellow trumpets of the daffodils, while her hand slid along the soft, coiled body of the cat. ‘I’m rather fond of the old devil myself, even if no one else can stand him, and I like Minnie – and Susan – very much.’

‘Minnie’s so damned woebegone and sorry for herself,’ Kit said. ‘Have we really got to ask them?’

‘She may be awfully hurt if we don’t,’ Fanny said. ‘So may Susan.’

‘Hell!’ He turned to the door. ‘Well, do what you think best.’

‘Kit – ’ she said quickly.

He did not turn to face her, though he stood still. His wide shoulders were a little hunched, his rather thick neck was somewhat sunk between them. It was the attitude of someone extremely on the defensive.

Fanny went on, ‘Tom and Minnie aren’t the reason why you don’t want me to ask them, are they?’

‘I told you,’ he answered in a sullen tone, ‘do what you think best.’

‘If I invite them and tell them – ’

‘Tell them what?’ he demanded sharply as she paused.

‘Oh, that the Poulter man’s coming and Clare and Laura and all, then they can come or not as they choose and at least Minnie can’t think I want to drop them, as so many other people have done.’

‘If Tom knows Poulter’s going to be here, he’ll insist on coming, then pick a quarrel with him when he gets here,’ Kit said. ‘But do what you like. It doesn’t matter to me.’

He went out.

Thrusting her fingers through her hair, Fanny gave a harsh sigh, then reached once more for the telephone.

First she rang up her next-door neighbours, the Gregorys, but both Jean and Colin were out. Next she rang up Mrs McLean, the wife of the local doctor. Mrs McLean said that she would be delighted to meet Kit’s fiancée, then talked for twenty minutes about the flowers that the last two days of sunshine had brought out in her garden. She was the most overpowering garden-lover in the village and once started could remain on the subject for hours at a time. But at last she rang off. With a good deal of reluctance, Fanny dialled the Mordues’ number.

Her ring was answered by Minnie Mordue, as Fanny had known it would be, for at that hour Susan was always out at work and Tom never answered the telephone at any hour, but only shouted curses at it for ringing, followed sometimes by curses at Minnie, if she made a mistake in any message she brought him.

Tom was a retired schoolmaster with a very small pension, who lived in a cottage about three miles out of the village. The cottage had no conveniences of any kind and Minnie, a shaggy-haired, sad-eyed woman with boundless physical energy but a drained and exhausted spirit, did all the laborious work of the household, without any help from her husband, even in chopping firewood or carrying coal. But though she complained about this constantly, in her heart she never really questioned its rightness, and when she saw Basil Lynam, who, as a university lecturer, impressed her as being even higher in the scale of intellectual eminence than Tom, doing the washing-up, marketing and sometimes even cooking, she felt that Fanny was blameworthy and deserved to lose the love of her husband. Yet she was very fond of Fanny, who had contrived, over several years, to remain amused at Tom’s quarrelsomeness and so had been allowed by him to remain a friend of Minnie’s.

Today, however, when Fanny invited her and her family to the cocktail party on Saturday, Minnie was evasive. She said that she must consult Tom, and, of course, Susan too, before she could accept.

This was what Fanny had expected, but it depressed her. Wearily, she said that if she found that they could not come, she would of course understand.

Minnie seemed to grasp at this thankfully.

‘I know, dear,’ she said, ‘I know you will. And that’s such a blessing, not having to explain. And perhaps we will come – I’d love to, of course – but if Susan should feel … Well, you know what she’s like. She’s very reserved and so I simply don’t know what she’s really feeling at the minute. But I’d hate to make her do anything that … Well, you know what I mean, so I won’t go into it. This girl, this Miss Greenslade – ’

‘Mrs Greenslade’ Fanny said. ‘She’s a widow.’

‘Well, this Mrs Greenslade, you do like her, don’t you, dear? You do think Kit will be happy with her?’

‘I haven’t met her yet,’ Fanny said. ‘At least Kit seems to be very much in love with her.’

‘Good, good,’ Minnie said in a voice that shook a little. ‘Marriage will be the making of him. Well, thanks for the invitation, dear. I’ll ring you up and tell you if we can come when I’ve consulted Tom – and, of course, Susan. Give Kit our love, won’t you? And be sure to tell him that we all hope he’ll be very happy.’

Fanny put the telephone down, then took one more long look across the room at the photograph of Laura Greenslade.

Yes, beautiful, she told herself, and intelligent – but what else?

Pushing the cat off her lap, she got up, pocketed the envelope on which she had written down her requirements for the party and crossed to the door.

Taking an old coat off a peg in the passage, she kicked off her slippers and stepped into a pair of gumboots, then went down the passage, through the shop and out into the street, releasing the catch of the shop door as she did so and turning a card that hung on the door, so that, seen from outside, it read, ‘Back presently’.

There was, of course, no need for her to order immediately most of the things that she had written down on the envelope, but talking to Minnie, holding in half the things that she had really wanted to say, had left her restless. Besides, it would be a good idea to have a talk with Harris, the combined greengrocer and fishmonger, about a lobster.

As Fanny reached the street, Tom Mordue, in the bar of The Waggoners, was saying in his high, harsh voice, which could always be heard over any other voices in the room, ‘You’re asking me what I think about it, Mr Davin? You want to know what
I think
? Well then, I’ll tell you, but don’t blame me if you don’t like it, because I never bother to falsify my opinions. Life isn’t long enough for that. Sometimes I keep my opinions to myself, but when I give them, I give them like an honest man. And you
asked
me what I think. Well then, what I think is that you’re a gullible fool, Mr Davin. Just that. A gullible fool, like ninety-nine per cent of the people in this country – or any other country. Yes, a gullible fool, sir, on whom an education at the country’s expense has been completely wasted, since apparently it hasn’t taught you even the elements of clear thinking. Nearly all education is completely wasted, as no one knows better than I. If I had my way, I’d abolish it. All of it. Back to illiteracy, Mr Davin, since then at least people like yourself would be saved from exploitation by every fake and phoney who thinks up some pretentious formula which he can afford to have printed and with which he imposes on your credulity.’

‘Hold hard, Tom,’ Colin Gregory muttered in Tom Mordue’s ear. ‘If you go on like that, there’ll be trouble.’

‘Trouble?’ Tom Mordue said as loudly as before. ‘The man asked me for my opinion, didn’t he? I was sitting here quietly drinking my beer and he disturbed my thoughts to ask me my opinion about a ridiculous patent medicine which he claims relieved his lumbago. Well, what d’you expect me to reply? D’you think I should congratulate him and advise him to go on throwing his hard-earned money away on bottle after bottle of worthless coloured water? No, I’m not that sort, my boy. I never thrust my opinions on anybody – ’

Someone in the bar drew in a derisive breath.

‘I
never
,’ Tom Mordue repeated, ‘force my opinions on anybody, but when I’m asked for them, I give them openly, sincerely and without fear or favour.’

‘But with a bloody lot of unnecessary insults,’ Fred Davin growled, getting off his stool and walking to the door. He was an elderly, thick-set, slow-moving man, who kept the local ironmonger’s shop and was widely known for a curious and almost total inability to send out bills to his customers. Most of them being honest people, they would often almost implore him to be allowed to pay what they owed, but that for Fred Davin would have meant days and nights of struggle with ledgers and accounts and would greatly have interfered with the time he spent in The Waggoners.

‘That stuff did me good,’ he said. Turning in the doorway, he stared at Tom Mordue and made his declaration of faith. ‘It cured my lumbago in three days, and that’s more than ever happened with anything Dr McLean gave me, though I’ve got nothing against him, he’s a good man and he does his best. But that stuff cured my lumbago in three days.’

He went out.

‘Shame on you, Mr Mordue,’ said Mrs Toles from behind the bar. ‘If that had been anyone but Fred Davin you said those things to we’d have had a scene. But you can tell what he felt, because that’s the first time I’ve known Fred Davin leave before closing-time for a good couple of years.’

‘And if he’d do that a bit more often, it’d do his lumbago a lot more good than all his patent medicines,’ Tom Mordue said.

‘Pipe down, Tom,’ Colin Gregory said. ‘It doesn’t amuse people.’

Tom Mordue’s reply was a high cackle of laughter.

He was a small, wrinkled, red-faced man, with a large head that was almost entirely bald and with thick, white eyebrows over small, keen, restless eyes. His mouth was almost lipless and opened, when he laughed, to show great, clumsy false teeth. He always sat stiffly upright, but he could never keep quite still and was always jigging with one foot or twisting his fingers round one another.

After a moment he said, ‘You’re my only friend, Colin – you and Fanny Lynam, that’s to say. I love Fanny, God bless her.’ He raised his beer mug in salute to her and drank.

‘But what makes you do it, Tom?’ Colin Gregory asked. ‘If the old boy thinks his mixture did him some good, why not let him go on thinking it? Then it’ll probably go on doing him good.’

‘I can’t stand self-deception, Colin,’ Tom Mordue answered. ‘I can’t stand pretences and hypocrisy. It’s no good asking me to. I know my life would have been far more comfortable if I’d been able to make myself do it. I might have been rich, popular, sought after. But there are some things a man can’t control. They go against his nature and there’s nothing he can do about it.’

‘It goes against your nature to pass up a chance for a row,’ Colin said.

He was a tall, slim, indolent-looking man of thirty-three, with a narrow, rather handsome, sunburnt face, wide, stooping shoulders, reserved grey eyes, and a lazy, good-humoured smile. He was sitting now with his long legs crossed, a pipe in his mouth and a pint of beer on the table in front of him. Nearby a big log-fire burnt on an open hearth. There was a fox’s mask on the wall above the fireplace and a badger’s above the door. Pewter pots hung in a row from a shelf. There were half a dozen other people in the bar.

Tom Mordue, keeping his restless eyes on them, as if he were watching for another possible point of attack, found their ranks closed against him. Their backs were turned towards him and their voices were lowered. There was no show of antagonism, but merely a placid impenetrability.

As if this had suddenly become more than he could bear, he got off his stool and muttering to Colin Gregory, ‘Well, see you tomorrow, Colin,’ he walked to the door.