“Why don’t you leave it in the cloakroom?” I asked, for it was a fairly bulky object.
“I don’t trust cloakrooms,” said Ursula darkly. “They do strange things in cloakrooms.”
In order to save embarrassment I didn’t inquire what strange things they did in cloakrooms, and we got into our seats and wedged the hamper between our legs.
Gradually the Pavilion filled with the normal crowd of earnest music lovers that attended the concerts. When the leader of the orchestra appeared, Ursula joined in the clapping with great vigour. Then she leaned across to me and said,
“I think he’s such a handsome conductor, don’t you?”
I didn’t feel that at that moment I should correct her. Presently the conductor came on and again Ursula threw herself into the applause with great enthusiasm and settled back with a deep sigh. She glanced at me and gave me a ravishing smile.
“I am going to enjoy this, darling,” she said.
The concert was a hotch-potch of Mozart, a composer that I am very fond of. I soon discovered what my friends had meant about Ursula’s distressing effect upon music. Should there be the slightest pause for one brief second in the music, Ursula’s hands were up and clapping. Soon, after people had been hissing and shushing us, I became quite adroit at catching her hands as they came up to clap in the middle of a piece. Each time she would turn anguished eyes on me and say,
“Darling, I’m sorry. I thought he’d finished.”
It was, I think, after the fourth piece when I felt the basket move. At first I thought I was mistaken but I pressed my leg against it, and, sure enough, it was vibrating. I looked at Ursula who had her eyes closed and was waving her forefinger in the air in time to the music.
“Ursula!” I whispered.
“Yes, darling,” she said, without opening her eyes.
“What have you got in your basket?” I asked. She opened her eyes, startled, and looked at me.
“What do you mean?” she said defensively.
“There is something moving in your basket,” I said.
“Hush!” came a chorus of angry voices around us.
“But it can’t be,” she said, “unless the pill’s worn off.”
“What have you got in your basket?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s nothing. It’s just a present for somebody,” she said. She leant down and fumbled at the lid, raised it, and then lifted out of it a minute, snow-white pekinese, with enormous black eyes.
To say I was shocked would be putting it mildly. After all, the concert-goers in Bournemouth took their music very seriously, and the last thing that they wanted or, indeed, would have allowed, was a dog in the sacred precincts of the Pavilion.
“Oh, damn!” said Ursula, looking at the pekinese’s rather charming little snub nose. “The pill’s worn off.”
“Look, put him back in the basket!” I hissed.
“Hush!” said everybody around us.
Ursula bent down to put the puppy back into the basket. He yawned voluptuously into her face and then gave a sudden and unexpected wiggle. She dropped him.
“Oooo!” she squeaked. “I dropped him! I dropped him!”
“Shut up!” I said.
“Hush!” said everyone around us.
I reached down to try and find the puppy but, obviously exhilarated by the fact that he had been released from his prison, he had trotted down the row through the forest of legs.
“What are we going to do?” said Ursula.
“Look, just shut up! Shut up and leave it to me,” I said.
“Hush!” said everybody around us.
We hushed for a minute while I thought frantically. How could I possibly find a pekinese puppy in amongst all those seats and legs without disrupting the entire concert?
“We’ll have to leave it,” I said. “I’ll look for him after everybody’s gone, after the concert.”
“You can’t!” said Ursula. “You simply can’t leave him, poor little thing. He might get trodden on and hurt.”
“Well, how do you expect me to find him?” I said.
“Hush!” said everybody around us.
“He’s got all tangled up in the seats and the legs and things,” I said.
“But darling, you must find him. He’ll get terribly, terribly lonely,” she said.
There must have been all of seven hundred people in the hall.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll pretend I’m going to the loo.”
“What a good idea,” said Ursula, beaming. “I think he went down that way.”
I got to my feet and ran the gauntlet of outraged faces and mumbled profanity as I worked my way down the row and out into the aisle. There, I saw, just ahead of me, the pekinese puppy, squatting down as dog puppies do before they’ve learnt to cock their leg, and decorating the red carpet with a little sign of his own. I went forward cautiously and grabbed at him. I caught him, but as I lifted him up he uttered a loud and piercing scream that was clearly audible even above the rather exuberant piece of music that the orchestra was playing. There was a great rustle as people turned round indignantly to look in my direction. The puppy continued his screams. I stuffed him unceremoniously under my coat, and, almost at a run, I left the concert hall.
I went to the cloakroom where, fortunately, I knew the girl in charge.
“Hallo,” she said. “You leaving already? Don’t you like the concert?”
“No... it’s... it’s a question of force of circumstances,” I said. I pulled the puppy out from my jacket and held it up in front of her.
“Would you look after this for me?” I asked.
“Oh, isn’t he sweet!” she said. “But you didn’t have him in there, did you? Dogs are not allowed you know.”
“Yes, I know,” I said. “He just got in by mistake. He belongs to a friend of mine. Would you look after him till after the concert?”
“Of course I will,” she said. “Isn’t he sweet?”
“He’s not terribly sweet when he’s in a concert hall,” I said.
I handed the puppy over to her tender care and went back and stood quietly in the shadows until the orchestra had finished the piece that they were playing. Then I made my way back to Ursula.
“Have you got him, darling?” she asked.
“No, I haven’t,” I said. “I put him in charge of the cloakroom attendant. She’s a friend of mine.”
“Are you sure he’ll be all right?” she said, obviously with dark thoughts about what they did in cloakrooms to pekinese puppies.
“He’ll be perfectly all right,” I said. “He’ll be loved and cherished until after the concert. I can’t think what induced you to bring a dog to a concert.”
“But, darling,” she said. “I meant him as a present for a friend of mine. I... I meant to tell you only you talked so much that I couldn’t get a word in edgeways. I want to take him after the concert.”
“Well, don’t, for heaven’s sake, do it again,” I said. “The Pavilion is not a place for dogs. Now let’s relax and try and enjoy the rest of the concert, shall we?”
“Of course, darling,” she said.
When the concert was over and Ursula had, as she put it, clapped herself hoarse, we extricated the puppy from the cloakroom and put it back in its basket and made our way out through the throngs of music lovers avidly discussing the prowess of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.
“Darling, I did enjoy that,” said Ursula. “It’s all those archipelagoes. They go running up my spine. There’s nothing like Beethoven, is there?” she asked loudly and clearly, hanging on my arm like a fragile maiden aunt, gazing earnestly into my eyes and clasping in one hand the programme, which had embossed in large letters on the front, “A Concert of Mozart.”
“Absolutely nothing,” I agreed. “Now, what about this puppy?”
“Well,” she said. “I want to take him to a friend of mine who lives on the outskirts of Poole. Her name is Mrs Golightly.”
“I’m not at all surprised,” I said. “But why do you want to take the puppy to Mrs Golightly?”