Now, at five minutes to eleven, someone knocked at the front door of Borodino. Rex, at that very moment turning into his study, heard them with a mixture of irritation and alarm. Would it be a matter he could handle in five - no, he glanced at his pocket watch, nearer four minutes? Or someone who would want to come in and start going on?
One thing was certain. There was no way he could go into his study and settle down with someone standing on the front step. For a start they would spot him through the window. And he couldn’t draw the curtains without giving away the fact that he was in. Botheration take it. He opened the door. It was Gerald.
‘Rex - I’m sorry.’ He stepped inside. ‘I know you start work around now—’
‘Yes. At eleven o’ clock act—’
‘I simply have to talk to you.’
‘Is it about the food?’ Rex was supplying a tin of glazed pralines, having been dissuaded from preparing one of his famous curries.
‘No. Though it is about tonight. In a way.’
To Rex’s dismay Gerald walked into his holy of holies. Just strolled in, lifted yesterday’s pages from the seat of a tapestry wing chair, dropped them on the floor and sat down. Rex stood and hovered, unable to bring himself to sit behind his desk merely for the purpose of idle banter. He waited, but having moved in the first instance so decisively Gerald now seemed to have difficulty getting to the point.
He stared distractedly out at the garden - not seeing the bird table, a battleground of squabbling starlings and sparrows, or Rex’s great hound, Montcalm, absentmindedly truffling among the frosty cabbage stalks - while Rex stared, covertly, at him.
Gerald looked terrible. He had not shaved and looked as if he hadn’t washed either. His eyes were red-rimmed and crusty with sleep. He kept clenching and unclenching his fists while seeming to be unaware of the fact. Rex, genuinely concerned, put all thoughts of The Night of the Hyena aside and said, ‘Gerald old chap. You look completely done in. Would some coffee help?’
Gerald shook his head. Rex, who had drawn up a companion chair, could smell the other man’s breath, sour and stale with more than a hint of liquor. They sat quietly for several minutes and finally Gerald spoke.
‘This is going to sound pathetic.’ A long pause. ‘I don’t really know how to put it.’ He stared at Rex directly for the first time. Half despairing, half ashamed. ‘However described I’m afraid it’ll sound very odd.’
‘I’m sure it won’t,’ said Rex, already consoled for his lost day by finding himself in that most pleasant of positions, consumed by a curiosity that was about to be promptly satisfied.
Gerald had put this moment off again and again. Now there was no time left. And, old and garrulous though he might be, it had to be Rex. There was no one else that Gerald could even consider approaching. Yet how to find the words? Even exposing the barest bones of his dilemma must make him look a fool and a coward. For the first time he noticed the working of his hands and spread them on his knees, pressing the fingers hard against the grey flannel, forcing them to be still.
‘You said it was about tonight,’ said Rex helpfully.
‘Yes.’ He looked like a non-swimmer forced to the end of the high-dive board. ‘The fact is I knew Max Jennings a long time ago. There was some unpleasantness. We parted bad friends.’
‘These things happen.’ Rex tactfully hid his appreciation of what sounded like a very juicy mystery and tried to sound consoling. This wasn’t difficult for he was, at heart, a kind man.
‘Quite honestly,’ continued Gerald, ‘I didn’t think for a minute, when he saw my signature on the invitation, that he would come.’ That letter, so endlessly worked and reworked and all in vain. ‘I don’t know what his reasons are. He can be very ... unpredictable. The thing is, Rex,’ his voice was taut with nervousness, ‘I don’t want to be on my own with him.’
‘Say no more,’ cried Rex, his eyes shining with excitement. ‘But what can I do?’
‘It’s simple really. Just don’t leave until he does.’
‘Of course I will. Or rather - of course I won’t.’ He hesitated. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t care to tell me—’
‘No, I wouldn’t.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘You don’t mind, Rex?’
‘My dear chap.’
‘It might be a bit awkward. Sitting it out, I mean. After all the others have gone.’
‘You think that will happen?’
‘Yes.’
Of course he should never have written at all. That was his big mistake. He should have told the group he had asked and been refused. No one would be surprised. And when they wanted to see the letter, which they always did, he could say that Mr Jennings’ secretary had declined the invitation by telephone. It was Brian, suddenly offering to write himself, which had brought on such a panic. Gerald realised Rex was talking again.
‘Sorry?’
‘I said, what if he turns up before anyone else arrives.’
‘He shouldn’t. I gave him eight instead of seven thirty. And if he does ...’ Even to Rex, Gerald could not admit that he would then be reduced to hiding, like an animal in its lair when the dogs are scrabbling at the entrance.
‘I wish you’d told me earlier, Gerald. We could have changed the venue. Held the meeting somewhere else.’
‘Then he would simply have left when I did. No, this way at least I have some sort of control.’
‘Would you like to come and sleep over here—’
‘For God’s sake!’ Gerald exploded, screwing up his eyes and clenching his fists again. ‘This is how I think it best to handle things - all right?’
‘Of course. Sorry.’
‘No - I’m sorry.’ Gerald got up stiffly and moved towards the door. He added, even while knowing his words would probably be a waste of time, ‘I need hardly say—’
‘Oh, strictly between friends of course. Would you like me to come over at seven, Gerald? Just in case.’
‘Yes. Good idea.’ Gerald managed a weak smile. ‘And thank you.’
Rex escorted his visitor down the path and through the gate, enthusiastically attended by Montcalm. Gerald walked heavily, shoulders bowed. He did not even cheer up when Rex pointed out that, by calling when he had, he’d missed a visit from Honoria, who was, even now, pedalling stolidly away from Plover’s Rest.
Once more back in the house Rex made some coffee and sat at his desk. Not to work of course. As an object of fascination the Hyena, presently in Baghdad buying information from an anti-Husseinite cell, paled in comparison with this real life drama. Of all people, old Gerald - the last word in boring, perhaps even slightly pompous, respectability - had a past. Who would have thought it?
Rex was tempted to pop out to the phone box, barely a minute’s walk away, but hauled temptation firmly back. He must keep his promise, at least till the evening was over. He looked at the clock. Seven and a half hours to go. How on earth was he going to bear it?
Sue had cleared away after supper, stacked the dishes in the sink and was now laying the table for breakfast. Upturned shiny brown cereal bowls, bunny egg cups, ill-matched cutlery and a scruffy plastic tub of home-made muesli with a label designed by herself.
Overhead, music thumped loudly as Amanda supposedly did her homework. Sue always thought of her offspring as Amanda. Allowing her to name the child had been one of the last indulgences that Brian had seen fit to bestow. Even then he had not had the generosity to conceal his displeasure at her choice. Pretentious. Snobbish. Affected. The baby had been ‘Mandy’ from the day of her birth and, once Brian had really got the hang of high-rise /comprehensive linguistic mores, ‘Mand.’