The Norfolk Mystery (The County Guides) (6 page)

‘In the glove compartment,' she said. ‘Go ahead. Take the packet.'

I took a cigarette, lit it, and inhaled hungrily.

‘Manners?' said my companion.

‘Sorry, miss? You'd rather I didn't smoke?'

‘Don't be ridiculous! Do I look like a maiden aunt?' She did not. ‘But I would expect a gentleman to offer me one of my own cigarettes. Unless of course you are not a gentleman …?'

I lit another cigarette from my own, and passed it across.

‘So,' she yelled at me, as we screeched around a sharp corner at the bottom of the hill, barely controlling the animal-like ferocity of the car. ‘You're not one of Father's dreadful acolytes?'

‘No. I don't think so,' I said. ‘I—'

‘Good. He usually attracts terrible types. Teetotallers. Non-smokers. Buddhists, even! Have you ever met a Buddhist, Sefton?'

‘No, miss, I don't think—'

‘Dreadful people. Breathe through their noses. Disgusting. Being in the public eye, as we are, one does attract the most peculiar people. Hundreds of letters every week – some of them from
actual
lunatics in
actual
lunatic asylums! Can you imagine! Even the so-called normal ones are rather creepy. And we have people turning up at the house sometimes with cameras, wishing to take his photograph. Quite ridiculous! Isn't it, Sefton?' She looked across at me, searching my face for agreement.

‘Yes,' I said, wishing that she'd pay more attention to the road. We passed, in quick succession: a large water mill to the left, offering for sale its own flour and oats; signs for a place called, improbably, Glandford, to the right; a large, rambling coaching inn, charabancs parked outside; a brand-new manor house sporting out-of-proportion Greek columns; and then a gypsy caravan by the side of the road, filthy gypsy children riding an Irish wolfhound before it, a pipe-smoking woman tending a fire alongside it, stirringa black pot of what may well have been goulash, but which was probably rabbit stew and, propped up against a nearby tree, a hand-painted sign advertising ‘Gypsy Pegs, Knife-Sharpening, Card Readings, Puppies'. I was suddenly struck by the rich and exotic beauty of the English countryside, as strange in its way as, say, India, or Port Said. Norfolk: North Africa. ‘It really is rather splendid here, miss, isn't it?'

‘Oh come on, Sefton! It's dull! Dull! Dull! Dull! I can't stand being stuck up here with Father. But then where's one supposed to go these days? Even London's getting to be so boring. It's becoming like a suburb of New York, don't you think?' She spoke as if having rehearsed her lines.

‘I'm afraid I've not had the pleasure of visiting New York, Miss Morley.'

‘Well, why don't you take me one day, Sefton, and I'll show you round.'

‘Well. I'll certainly … think about that, Miss Morley.'

‘Call me Miriam.'

‘I'll stick with Miss Morley, thank you.'

‘Oh, don't be such a stick-in-the-mud, Sefton. What's the point of such formalities? I believe in being brutally frank.'

‘Very good, miss,' I said.

‘Really. Brutally, Sefton. I'll be brutally open and frank with you, and you can be brutally open and frank with me. How does that sound? The best way between grown men and women, isn't it?'

‘I'm not sure, miss,' I said.

‘Oh, don't be so solemn! It's terribly boring. I'd hoped you might be more fun.'

‘I do my best, miss.'

‘To be fun?' she said, taking both hands from the wheel and tossing away her half-smoked cigarette. ‘Do you now? I'll be the judge of that, shall I? Anyway, I should warn you, seeing as you're going to be staying with us, that despite what everyone thinks, Father is an
absolute
tyrant, and a
complete
dinosaur.'

‘I think, miss, it might be more appropriate if—'

‘Appropriate! Are you always so proper and correct, Sefton?'

‘Not always, miss. No.'

‘Good. I'm only telling you the truth. I'm having terrible trouble persuading him to introduce American plumbing at the moment. He believes in early morning starts and cold baths. He's up studying at five, for goodness sake. I mean, reading before breakfast! Ugh! Rather grisly, don't you think? Imagine what it must do to the digestion.'

‘Your father, I believe, is a very … diligent and profound student of—'

‘Oh, do give over, Sefton! He's a madman. Forever writing. Forever reading. Continually being overcome with wonder at the world. It all makes for terribly boring company. Do you believe in early morning starts?'

‘It rather depends what one has been engaged in the night before,' I said.

‘Quite so, Sefton! Quite so! You know, you might prove to be an ally about the place after all. What about hot baths?'

‘I have no strong opinion about hot baths,' I said.

We had long passed Letheringsett, and were heading for Saxlingham.

‘“Hot baths are the root of our present languor,”' she said, in a more than passable imitation of her father. ‘“The hot bath is a medical emergency rather than a diurnal tonic. It destroys the oil of the skin.” Ridiculous! Anyway, Sefton, you're prepared?'

‘For what?' I said.

‘What do you imagine I'd be asking you to be prepared for, Sefton?' She raised a bold eyebrow beneath her bold asymmetric bob. ‘For this ludicrous new enterprise of his, silly.'

‘
The County Guides
?'

‘Yes. Absurd, isn't it? As if anyone's interested in history these days. Ye Olde Merrie Englande? Ye Cheshire Cheese? Ye Local Customs?'

‘I'm not sure that's what he has in mind. I think it's more a geographical—'

‘What?
Plunges into Unknown Herts
?
Surrey: off the Beaten
?
Behold, Ye Ancient Monuments
? For pity's sake, Sefton. Who cares? All those dreadful places. Wessex and Devon! Never mind the north! Hardly bears thinking about. I'm afraid I just couldn't be bothered.'

She glanced at me, her Picasso-like profile all the more striking in motion.

‘Do you drive, Sefton?'

‘I do.'

She then seemed to be waiting for me to ask something back; she was that kind of woman. The kind who asked questions in order to have them asked back, using men essentially as pocket-mirrors.

‘This is a lovely car,' I said.

‘Oh, this? Yes. Father's mad on cars. He's got half a dozen, you know. Loads and loads. The bull-nosed Morris Cowley, with a dickey seat – dodgy fuel pump. And the ancient Austin,
Of Accursed Memory
. The Morris Oxford, with beige curtains at the windows; sometimes he'll take a nap in it in the afternoons. It's terribly sweet really.'

‘Yes.'

‘He can't drive, though, of course. And he has all these sorts of crazy ideas. He thinks cars run better at night-time – something to do with the evening air. Claims it's scientific. Absolute clap-trap, of course. But this is my favourite,' she continued, stroking the steering wheel. ‘It's a Lagonda,' she said, stressing the second syllable, in the Italian fashion. ‘Isn't it a lovely word?'

‘Quite lovely,' I said.

‘Lagonda,' she repeated. She clearly liked the idea of Italian. Or Italians. ‘Only twenty-five of them made. Designed by Mr Bentley himself, I believe. Herr Himmler has one in Germany. Harmsworth. King Leopold of the Belgians. I think you'll find that ours is one of the only white Lagonda LG45 Rapides in England.'

‘Really?' I said. She seemed to be awaiting congratulations on this fact. I declined to compliment, and instead silently admired the car's upholstery and its fine walnut dashboard.

Saxlingham outdistanced, we were now beyond signposts, in deep English country.

‘She handles very well,' she continued. ‘The car, I mean, Sefton.' That ridiculous eyebrow again. ‘One of Father's concessions to modernity. He won't buy us proper plumbing, but anything that gets him from here to there more quickly he's happy to fork out for! Honestly! It's the production version of the Lagonda race car, you know. She's really the last word.'

‘In what?'

‘Cars, silly! Top speed of a hundred and five miles per hour. Would you like me to show you?'

‘No, thank you, miss,' I said, suspecting that we were already not far from such a speed. ‘I'll take your word for it.'

‘Oh come on, Sefton,' she said, fiercely revving the car's engine. ‘Don't you enjoy a little adventure?'

‘I used to,' I said.

‘What? Lost your taste for it?'

‘Possibly, miss, yes.'

‘Oh dear. Well, perhaps I'll be able to revive your flagging interest then, eh?' And with this she leaned forward eagerly in her seat, stamped on the accelerator, and we began tearing up the roads.

‘You're not scared are you?' she called, as our speed increased.

But I now found her absurd flirtatious antics too wearisome to respond to at all, and simply gazed at the hedgerows speeding past inches from the car, which was spitting up stones and dirt – we were now driving along a single-track road that had clearly been made for horses' hoofs rather than high-speed Lagondas.

We breasted a small hill and began careering down the other side, approaching a bend at both unsuitable angle and speed.

‘Slow down, miss,' I said sharply.

‘What?'

‘Slow down.'

As we sped unwisely towards the bend she turned and looked at me and there was a look in her eye that I recognised – the same look I had seen in men's eyes in Spain; and the look they must have seen in mine. Desperation. Fear. Joy. A shameless, stiff, direct gaze, challenging life itself. Terrifying.

She was understeering – out of ignorance, I suspected, rather than daring – as we approached the bend, and I found myself reaching across her, grabbing the wheel and tugging it towards me, attempting to correct the angle and bring the car in more tightly.

‘Look out!' she screamed, as we swept down upon the bend, the rear of the Lagonda swinging out from behind us, her foot slamming down instinctively on the brakes.

‘Don't brake!' I screamed – I knew it would throw the car – and grabbed down at her ankle and pulled it up, reaching down with my other hand to apply a little pressure in order to transfer weight to the front.

It worked. Just.

We skidded to a halt, engine and tyres smoking, my head first in her lap and then juddering into the Lagonda's pretty dashboard. The engine cut out.

‘Oh!' she yelled. ‘You maddening man! What on earth do you think you're doing?'

‘What do you think you're doing?' I yelled back.

At which challenge she threw her head back and laughed, a great throaty, hollow laugh, as though the whole thing were a mere prank she'd rehearsed many times. Which she may have.

‘What am I doing?
I'm
living
, Sefton! How do you like it, eh?'

I sat up, straightened myself, opened the car door and climbed out.

‘What are you doing?' she called.

‘I'm getting out here, miss, thank you,' I said.

‘But you can't!'

‘Yes I can.' I began walking on ahead. ‘I'll find my own way now, thank you, miss.'

‘How dare you!' I could hear the stamp of her pretty little foot. ‘Get back in here now! Now!'

The rich and exotic beauty of the English countryside

I walked on ahead, feeling calm.

‘Sefton!' she called. ‘Did you hear me, man? Get back in here, now.'

Then, realising that I had no intention of obeying her orders and that she had indeed lost control of the situation, she promptly started up the still smoking engine, stamped her foot on the accelerator, and sped past, hooting the horn as she went.

‘See. You. Later. Sluggard!' she called, snatching triumph with one last toss of her head. The look in her eyes remained with me for some time.

It was a trek to the Morley house. My head was throbbing. My foot was sore. I stopped off at a cottage on the road to a place called Blakeney, asking for directions, and the old cottager came out – a fine country figure, rigged out in greasy waistcoat and side whiskers of the variety people used to call ‘weepers' – and pointed back the way I'd come. ‘But I'm terrible blind,' he warned, as I departed. I wasn't sure if he meant literally, or if it was some amusement of his. Whichever, he sent me the wrong way, and it was long past supper time when I eventually arrived, sans suitcase, sans pills, sans everything.

A thin new moon was set high in the sky.

I felt wretched. Outcast. Like an apparition. Or a newborn child.