The Darling Buds of May (16 page)

The illustration was, however, lost on Sir George, who had no television set.

‘There are certain aspects other than material,' he said, ‘that have to be borne in mind.'

Pop said he couldn't think for the life of him what they were, and Bluff-Gore looked at the perky, side-lined face with tolerant irony and an oysterish half-smile.

‘You were not thinking of buying the place, by any chance, were you?'

‘Course I was.' The gentry were, Pop thought, really halfdopes sometimes. ‘What d'ye think I asked you for?'

The oysterish smile widened a little, still ironically tolerant, for the next question.

‘And what would you do with it, may I ask?'

‘Pull the flippin' thing down.' Pop gave one of his piercing, jolly shouts of laughter. ‘What else d'ye think?'

‘Good God.'

By now Bluff-Gore was whiter than ever. The eyes themselves had become oysters, opaque, sightless jellies, wet with shock, even with a glint of tears.

‘Lot o' good scrap there,' Pop said. ‘Make you a good offer.'

Bluff-Gore found himself quite incapable of speaking; he could only stare emptily and with increasing dejection at the grass of the beer tent, as if mourning for some dear, unspoken departed.

‘Cash,' Pop said. ‘Ready as Freddy – why don't you think it over?'

Laughing again, he made a final expansive swing of his beer mug, drawing froth, and left the speechless, sightless Bluff-Gore standing dismally alone.

Outside, in the meadow now gay with strung flags of yellow, scarlet, blue, and emerald, the tents and the marquees standing about the new green grass like white haystacks, Pop found the sun now shining brilliantly. Over by the river, well away from the ring, Mariette was having a practice canter. She had changed already into her yellow shirt and jodhpurs and her bare head was like a curly black kitten against the far blue sky. Mr Charlton was in attendance and suddenly Pop remembered the little matter of the baby. He supposed she wouldn't have to ride much longer and he wondered mildly if Mr Charlton knew. He'd forgotten about that.

Suddenly, from far across the meadow, he heard a rousing, familiar sound. It was Ma beating with a wooden spoon on a big jam-saucepan.

It was time to eat. It was hot in the midday sun and there was a scent of bruised grass in in the air.

‘Perfick,' Pop thought. ‘Going to be a stinger. Going to be wonderful afternoon.'

*

All afternoon Mr Charlton watched Mariette taking part in the riding and jumping events she had chosen. Once again, as she
took her pony faultlessly through the walk, trot, canter, and run; he could hardly believe in that astral delicious figure, yellow, fawn, and black on its bay pony. Impossible almost to believe that it was the girl who had undressed him on the billiard table, scratched the eyes out of Pauline Jackson, and worked with him in the strawberry field. Once again she looked so perfectly aristocratic that she might have been the niece of Lady Planson-Forbes and he had never been so happy in his life as he watched her.

Ma was happy too. Who wouldn't be? All the children were properly dressed for the occasion, wearing riding habits, jodhpurs, and proper riding caps, even though only Mariette and Montgomery were going to ride. Each of them went about sucking enormous pink-and-yellow ice-creams; and the twins, who took so much after Ma, had large crackling bags of popcorn and potato crisps.

Nor were there any flies on Ma. She was wearing a silk costume in very pale turquoise, with slightly darker perpendicular stripes. She had chosen a rather large dark-blue straw hat that shaded her face nicely and, as the milliner had predicted, ‘helped to balance her up a bit'. Her shoes were also blue, almost the colour of her hat, and her hair had been permed into stiffish little waves. The only thing that really bothered her was her turquoise rings. They had started to cut into her fingers again. She would have to have them off.

Beside her the Brigadier's sister looked, as she always did, in her beige shantung and pink cloche hat, like a clothes peg with a thimble perched on top of it.

‘Not going in for this 'ere ladies' donkey Derby, are you?' Ma said. Her body quivered with resonant, jellying laughter.

An invitation to strip down to the bare bosom could hardly have brought less response from the sister of the Brigadier.

‘I think Miss Pilchester's going in,' Ma said. ‘Anyway Pop's trying to persuade her to.'

The ladies' donkey Derby was a late, inspired idea of Pop's. He had managed to persuade the committee that they owed it
to him in return for the field. He had also found a silver cup. He had once bought it at a sale, thinking it would be nice to stand on the sideboard. It was engraved with the details of an angling competition, but Pop didn't think it mattered all that much.

While Ma wandered about with the children and Mr Charlton watched the various events, listening with pride every time the loudspeakers spoke the name of Miss Mariette Larkin, Pop was spending some time behind the beer tent, trying to induce Miss Pilchester to ride in the donkey Derby.

‘I honestly couldn't. It would be absolutely ghastly.'

‘I thought you liked a bit o' fun?'

‘I think you are trying to be very naughty.'

Irresistible though Miss Pilchester always found him, she could not help thinking that this afternoon, in the brilliant sun, Pop looked even more so. He was wearing a suit of small, smart brown-and-white checks, an orange-brown tie, and a new brown Edwardian cap. Like Ma, he compared very favourably with other people: with, for instance, the Brigadier, who was wearing a snuff-coloured sports jacket patched at the elbows with brown leather, his washed-out University tie, and a pair of crumpled corduroys the colour of a moulting stoat.

For the second or third time Pop urged Miss Pilchester to be a sport.

‘Just one more rider to make up the seven.'

‘Who else is riding? I have never even ridden a donkey in my life before.'

‘All girls of your age.'

Miss Pilchester darted one of her rapid glances at Pop. The cast of suspicion died in her eye as she saw the brown new cap. How well it suited him.

‘What about that time I took you home in the Rolls?'

‘What about it?'

‘Best kiss I've had for a long time.'

‘You make me feel shy!' Miss Pilchester said.

‘Beauty,' Pop said. ‘Haven't been able to forget it.'

Miss Pilchester hadn't been able to forget it either; she had even wondered if it might ever be repeated.

‘I admit it was far from unpleasant, but what has it to do with the donkey Derby?'

Pop started to caress the outer rim of Miss Pilchester's thigh. With upsurgent alarm Miss Pilchester felt an investigating finger press a suspender button.

‘People will be looking!'

‘Coming to the cocktail party?'

‘I think so. Yes, I am.'

‘Repeat performance tonight at the cocktail party. Promise.'

‘I know those promises. They're like pie-crust!'

At four o'clock Miss Pilchester was ready to ride in the ladies' donkey Derby.

A quarter of an hour before that Montgomery and Mr Charlton had ridden in the men's donkey Derby. Most of the donkeys, including Mr Charlton's, had had to be started with carrots and the race had been won by a pale sagacious animal named Whiskey Johnny, who didn't need any carrots. Mr Charlton had ridden three yards and then fallen off. His mount had instantly bolted, ending up in stirring style far beyond the tea tent, by the river, where already a few lovers, bored by the events and stimulated by a warm afternoon of entrancing golden air, were embracing in the long grasses by the bank, profitably dreaming out the day in a world of rising fish, wild irises, and expanding water-lily blooms.

When Pop went to collect the animal, which was called Jasmine, he found it staring with detached interest at a soldier and a passionate, well-formed young blonde, both of whom were oblivious, in the grasses, of the presence of watchers. Jasmine, Pop thought, seemed so interested in what was going on that after being led away some paces she turned, pricked up her ears and looked around, rather as if she wanted to come back and see it all again.

After all this Pop selected Jasmine for Miss Pilchester to ride.
The animal stood dangerously still at the starting point, in stubborn suspense, while Pop gave earnest ante-post advice to Miss Pilchester, who sat astride.

‘Hang on with your knees. Don't let go. Hang on tight. Like grim death.'

Miss Pilchester, already looking like grim death, gave a hasty glance round at the other competitors, dismayed to find them all young, effervescent girls of sixteen or seventeen. She herself felt neither young nor effervescent and the donkey was horribly hairy underneath her calves.

‘Don't mind them, Edith. Don't look at them. Look straight ahead – straight as you can go. Hang on like grim death.'

Miss Pilchester became vaguely aware of carrots, in orange arcs, being waved in all directions. A few animals trotted indifferently up the track, between shrieking, cheering rows of spectators. One trotted at incautious speed for thirty yards or so and then, as if inexplicably bored about something, turned and came back. Another sidled to the side of the track and leaned against a post, allowing itself to be stroked by various children, including Victoria and the twins. Two girls fell off, screaming, and there were gay momentary glimpses of black and apricot lingerie.

Jasmine stood fast. ‘Git up, old gal!' Pop said, and started to push her. ‘Git up there, Jasmine!' Pop put his weight against her rump and heaved. Nothing happened, and it seemed as if Jasmine had sunk her feet into the ground.

It was all absolutely ghastly, Miss Pilchester was just thinking when over the loudspeaker a voice started up an announcement about Anne Fitzgerald; aged three, who had lost her mother. Would Mrs Fitzgerald please –.

The loudspeaker gave a few snappy barks. Jasmine cocked her ears and broke through with frenzy the final waving arcs of carrots, leaving Pop on the ground and everybody scattered.

Miss Pilchester, as Pop had so earnestly and correctly advised, hung on firmly and desperately with her knees, just like grim
death, and in thirty seconds Jasmine was back at the river, once more staring into the world of grasses, water-lilies, irises, and a soldier's summer love.

Half-dismounting, half-falling, a dishevelled and demoralized Miss Pilchester stood staring too. It was all absolutely and utterly ghastly and it only made things worse when the soldier, disturbed in the middle of his technique, looked up calmly and said:

‘Why don't you go away, Ma? Both of you. You
and
your sister.'

Pop, uncertain as to quite who had been invited to the party and who had not, spent most of the rest of the afternoon hailing odd acquaintances, generously clapping them on the back, and saying: ‘See you at eight o'clock. See you at the party.' The result was that by half-past eight the billiard room was a clamorous, fighting mass of fifty or sixty people, one half of whom had never received a formal invitation.

‘I never thought we asked this lot,' Ma said. ‘Hardly enough stuff to go round –'

‘Let 'em all come!' Pop said.

The billiard room was the perfick place, he thought, for having the party. The billiard table, covered over by trestle table boards and then with a big white cloth, was just the thing for the eats, the champagne, and the glasses. One of the doors led back into the house, in case people wanted to pop upstairs, and the other into the garden, so that those who felt inclined could dodge out and take the air.

Through the thickest fog of smoke Pop had ever seen outside a smoking concert, he and Ma, helped by Mariette, Mr Charlton, and Montgomery, served food, poured out champagne, and handed glasses round. Every now and then people collided with each other in the crowded fog and a glass went smashing to the floor. Nobody seemed to care about this and Ma was glad the glasses had been hired from caterers. That was another brilliant idea of Mr Charlton's.

Now and then someone, almost always someone he hardly knew, came up to Pop, squeezed his elbow, and said, ‘Damn good party, Larkin, old boy. Going well,' so that Pop felt very pleased. Ma too moved everywhere with genial expansiveness. In the
crowd she seemed larger than ever, so that whenever she moved her huge body from one spot to another a large open vacuum was formed.

In one of these spaces, alongside a wall, Pop found the two Miss Barnwells, Effie and Edna, who, to his infinite pain and surprise, had no crumb or glass between them. The Miss Barnwells, who were thinking of applying for National Assistance because times were so bad, were two genteel freckled little ladies, daughters of an Indian civil servant, who had been born in Delhi. Among other things they kept bees and their little yellow faces, crowded with freckles, looked as if they were regularly and thoroughly stung all over.

‘Nothing to eat? Nothing to drink?'

Pop could hardly believe it; he was shocked.

‘We were just contemplating.'

‘Contemplate my foot,' Pop said. ‘I'll get you a glass o' champagne.'

‘No, no,' they said. ‘Nothing at all like that.'

‘Terrible,' Pop said. ‘Nobody looking after you. I'll get you a sandwich.'

Coming back a moment or two later with a plate of Ma's delicious buttery ham sandwiches, he returned to the painful subject of the Miss Barnwells and their having nothing to drink at all.

‘Glass o' beer? Drop o' cider? Glass o' port?'

‘No, no. No, thank you. We are quite happy.'

‘Have a Ma Chérie.'

The air seemed to light up with infinite twinkling freckles.

‘What is a Ma Chérie?'

Ma Chérie was hardly, Pop thought, a drink at all. It was simply sherry, soda, and a dash of something or other, he could never remember quite what. It was nothing like Red Bull or Rolls-Royce or Chauffeur, the good ones.