‘I hope I’m not supposed to eat all this.’
‘Good heavens, no,’ Rex laughed. ‘The others will be here any minute.’ Then he remembered that Max had been told the meeting didn’t start till eight. How much there was to keep track of, to be sure, when one was playing a part. He felt a fleeting sympathy for the Hyena, which train of thought led him to wonder if it would be discourteous to take advantage of the present situation to ask Max a few questions. Helper’s perks and all that. Why not?
‘I write spy stories,’ he said, sitting on the sofa, ‘and I was wondering how much time you think one can decently spend on the details of relevant weaponry. I’m very interested in armoured vehicles - the one-ton Humber Hornet especially. I’ve written roughly ten pages describing its various functions. Do you think that’s too long?’
‘I do rather,’ said Max. ‘I’d’ve thought your readers will be wanting to get back to the plot long before then.’
‘Ah, now.’ Rex looked shy and somewhat disconcerted. ‘That is something I have a problem with, plot. Plot, characters, dialogue and descriptions of the natural world. Apart from that, I’m fine.’
Max sipped at his drink, seeming to turn this over, then said, ‘Have you thought about writing non-fiction, Rex? Perhaps a textbook, as you obviously have such specialised knowledge.’
But then the doorbell rang. It was Laura. And no sooner had she taken off her coat than Honoria and Amy arrived.
Laura was more than a little surprised to find herself at Plover’s Rest for, since Honoria’s visit, she had changed her mind about the meeting a thousand times. Veering from knowing she could not bear to see Gerald to knowing she could not bear not to see Gerald; from being sure one minute that she knew exactly how she felt (hated him, hated him) to being sure the very next that there was no way she could possibly know how she felt till their next meeting. The relief when she realised that he was not actually in the room was so tremendous that she was overcome by dizziness and almost fell. This sensation was re-triggered the moment she sat down, when the door was opened again. But it was only Brian, closely followed by Sue, red-faced and puffing from the effort of trying to catch him up.
Brian gave a curt nod in the direction of the guest’s armchair. Sue smiled shyly and shook hands, concealing her surprise, for Max was nothing at all as she had expected. Sue had been picturing a big bluff tweedy man perhaps smoking a pipe. Max Jennings wore tweeds, true, but they were closely woven, beautifully cut and the colour of driftwood and he was smoking slender brown cigars. His heavy linen shirt was the extremely pale shade of green that used to be called eau-de-nil. It was impossible to guess how old he was for, although he had snow-white hair springing back in deep waves from his forehead, his clear, lightly tanned skin was quite unlined. And Sue had never seen such eyes. Brilliant azure. The blue of Moroccan skies. Matisse blue. He was slightly built and not very tall.
Brian, having taken a seat within easy reach of the banquet, flung one baggily trousered leg over its fellow and stared contemptuously around. What a pathetic lot. Dressed up to the nines as if for royalty. Amy wore frills, Rex his dusty pinstriped funeral gear, Honoria a halfway decent Daks skirt and heather-mixture cardigan. Laura had excelled herself in a narrow black dress and Chinese brocade jacket. As for Sue, well ...
A rainbow-patterned full-length caftan over a badly bobbled limegreen mohair jersey. Hair half plaited, half not (she had panicked on hearing the front door slam) and too much highly coloured make-up. Brian, once he had caught his wife’s eye, rolled back his own, registered disbelief and shook his head. Then, satisfied that his state of absolute unimpressedness had been observed by one and all he reached out and helped himself to a sandwich.
‘Don’t you think,’ called Honoria, as loudly as if he were still in his own kitchen next door, ‘that it might be courteous to wait until all of us are present? Or, at the very least, until you are asked.’
‘Folks uz wait till they’re arst,’ replied Brian, thinking to speak broadest Yorkshire, ‘get nowt.’ Then, having shown his independence and provoked the desired response, he crammed the sandwich into his mouth and said, ‘Where’s Gerald?’
A question no sooner asked than answered. Footsteps were heard running quickly down the stairs and, a moment later, their host came into the room. He went straight across to Max Jennings’ corner, holding out his hand and apologising profusely for not being present when Max arrived. He then introduced himself. Twice.
Rex felt gravely let down. One of the ways he had killed time that afternoon was by writing and re-writing this meeting of Gerald and Max in his mind. He had imagined all sorts of permutations. Some quite tame, some funny, others wildly unreasonable. What he had not considered for a moment was that Gerald would simply pretend that they had never met before.
Now Max was getting up, taking the outstretched hand and gracefully turning the apologies aside. Looked as if the play was going to be over before it had even started. Rex’s disappointment deepened when it struck him that perhaps Max genuinely did not remember the incident in the past that had caused Gerald such distress. How humiliating. Comforting too, of course. In a way. He indicated the spare place beside him on the sofa and Gerald sat down. Rex smelt brandy and recalled the missing decanter.
Now everyone was present there was a general flutter of anticipation followed, quite quickly, by a rather unnatural stillness. The meeting (Laura and Gerald excepted) gazed at Max Jennings with a constrained vitality that plainly declared a desire for action. He returned a hesitating smile. Sue wondered if he was waiting for some sort of formal introduction, which was surely only proper, but no one seemed moved to give one and eventually he began to speak. His voice was low and musical, with an accent that she could not quite place.
‘If I start by saying “unaccustomed as I am” I can assure you it’s no more than the truth. I’ve simply never done this sort of thing before. I haven’t prepared anything, I’m afraid. Just come along to see what you wanted. And how, if at all, I can help.’
For a moment there was silence. People looked around uncertainly. It was as if years of rejected invitations had left them unsure they were hearing right. That they were, in fact, sitting in their usual gathering place but this time with the real McCoy - a living, breathing professional writer who had actually offered to help if he could. The sheer novelty of the situation seemed to be about to prove too much for them.
Then Brian uncrossed his legs, leaned forward and, with an expression of great solemnity, cleared his throat—
‘I am in the process of writing,’ declared Honoria, ‘the history of my family, which is to say the history of England. The Lyddiard blood has, without the slightest taint of bastardy ...’
Brian, irritated almost beyond endurance at being pipped at the post, sat back but in a pouncy, gathered manner as if to warn all present that he would not be cheated a second time. Consumed with resentment, he tried to stop his ears against Honoria’s droning recitation. If he had been even halfway actively true to his principles he should, long since, have thrust two fingers right up her high bridged, bonily Roman, aristocratic hooter. The fact that he had never been able to bring himself to do this he blamed on his emasculating parents and their ghastly, toadying enthusiasm for society’s upper crust.
Brian had bitter memories of being forced to take his cap off in the village high street every time a member of the fox-and-hounds squirearchy trotted by. He had been cruelly mocked by his peers for these archaic genuflections and had complained in anguish to his parents, only to be told that such little courtesies were the cement that held society together. There would always be a man on horse-back and one on foot, his father had explained. It was the natural order of things.