Colonel was obviously a good bloke and a very suitable
match. I couldn't see anything wrong with it at all. I'd better
get on the telephone forthwith and say so.
I was just going to dial the number when there was a knock
at the kitchen door and Jack Cain put his head round it.
'Hullo, Jack!' I said. 'You're early this morning. Come in!'
'No, l won't come in, Mister Alan, 'cos I got me 'eavy boots
on, see, and I don't want Gladys Spencer sayin' as I mucked
the floor up an' she 'ad to clean it. Still on yer own, are yer?'
'Till to-morrow, yes, but I'm not repining.'
'Ah, that's all right, then. You seen the yard yet, Mister
Alan, 'ave yer?'
'No, Jack. What about it?'
'Well, that big ol' water-butt's gone an' bust, that's what.
Cor bugger, th' bottom must've bin rusted right through!
"E's clean empty, an' 'ole's big as my 'and, all ragged like,
bits o' rust an' that. Ain't 'alf made a bloody mess.'
'Oh, hell! What a nuisance!'
'Didn't you never 'ear un go? All that water must 'a made
'ell of a noise, I reckon. Still, I s'pose you slept through it
nice an' steady like.'
'I - well, I suppose I must have, Jack. Er -'
'Well, don't make great lot o' difference, 'cause I don't
see what you could 'a done about it anyways. 'F you got a
stiff broom anywheres I'll just get on an' clear th' yard up.
Then after that I reckoned I'd get me old 'ook to that bit o'
grass down the shrubbery, 'less there's anythin' else what
you wants doin'. On'y you're goin' to need a new butt. No
doin' nothin' more with 'e.'
264
'Oh, well, that's it, then, Jack. Thanks for telling me. I
expect we'll survive. Here's the broom. Like a cup of tea?'
'Not just now, thanks, Mister Alan. I know you got to get
on, and I'd better do same an' all. I'll 'ave one later on,
when Gladys comes in."
So that was the explanation. Thank God, I hadn't been in
the grip of a delusion after all! At least - The only odd thing
was that as far as I could remember the whole business in
the night had been pretty noisy and had gone on rather a
long time. How long would it take a water-butt to empty
itself? If the rusted part opened and broke up only gradually,
a fair while, I supposed; first dripping and finally gushing.
But then, the ventriloquial effect all over the house; and the
intermissions of silence? Well, but the dreams, the neuralgia;
the whole subjective thing, in fact Anyway,
this was no time to be pondering on all that. I
had to get on the telephone. And dammit, I should now have
to see to the eats for to-morrow myself. Olives, cheesestraws,
salted peanuts - what else?
I decided not to rush out and buy a new water-butt. That one
had lasted longer than I could remember and had probably
cost a few pounds in the nineteen-thirties. Now, a presentday
householder, I should have to perpend before lashing
out on something smaller and much dearer. What we were
supposed to be concentrating on at the moment, however,
was building up capital and paying off the bank loan. Items
like water-butts would have to wait until Kathe, the living
asset (according to Flick), had met more people and created
enough additional goodwill to make our fortune. I still felt
somewhat sceptical about this and anyway I found the idea
distasteful. I hadn't married Kathe for commercial profit
and I certainly didn't want to exploit her as a front-girl. If
we became a professional team - which I now believed we
would - that was another matter. Anyway, she was coming
back to-morrow! No more water, no more fright, no more
dithering in the night!
All the same, the state of the business was rather worry265
ing. The truth was that I had failed to observe that excellent
rule - keep personal capital and business capital in separate
drawers. I had spent a considerable amount in K0benhavn,
London and Florida. Now my available capital was too low,
and you can't make brass without spending it. Nevertheless,
the sale of a couple of really good items - frozen assets would
make a lot of difference. Perhaps I might come down
a bit on that Meissen tobacco-box with the purple decoration
- or even put it in to Sotheby's, just to raise a bit more
wind?
With these and similar reflections Friday passed quietly,
Deirdre and I minding shop and Mrs Taswell tapping diligently
away on her typewriter. I made a schoolboy's chart
of the hours due until Kathe's return and put a pencil
through each as it passed, but when the time came to shut up
shop I'd struck off only seven out of twenty-four, so I tore
it up. I had supper at Tony's, was in bed by ten, read Malory
for half an hour and slept soundly.
Kathe telephoned while I was having breakfast. She'd
missed the early train; apparently the engagement party had
gone on late. She was now due to arrive at Newbury at
twelve twenty-five.
'But, darling,' I said, 'I can't meet you!'
'Not on the way up from the shop?'
'No, not really. These characters are due to arrive any
time from twelve onwards. I'll have to be leaving the shop
about half-past eleven.'
'Ja, gut. I'll take a taxi up. 'See you all about quarter
to one. Now, here's your geliebte Mutter, wearing a diamond
ring that'll dazzle you down the telephone. Shut your eyes
and I'll hand you over.'
'Alan? Good morning, dear! Oh, we are so sorry to be
losing Kathe, but I know how glad you'll be to have her back.
Look, while I remember, you'd better put Gerald and me in
the Newbury News on Thursday, hadn't you? I've written a
little piece. Let me read it over to you and then you can tell
me if it's all right...'
266
By quarter past twelve everyone who'd been invited was already
in the drawing-room.
Hoping that we might be able to sit in the garden, I'd had
Jack mow the lawn on Friday; and this morning, before going
down to the shop, had myself trimmed the verges and cut
the dead heads off the pinks and godetias. However, as luck
would have it the weather had turned cloudy and a shade
cold, though there was still no sign of a steady rain.
Barbara Stannard was all bare, sun-burned arms, white
beads and golden hair, and even Lady Alice (who sported an
ivory-headed stick, like old Queen Mary) had made a concession
to midsummer by turning up in a short-sleeved,
flowered silk dress and open-work shoes. I poured sherry,
squirted soda and mixed vodka and lime, and co-opted Tony
(in mufti and his Old Lancing tie) to hand round the glasses.
'Why, wherever's your beautiful Katy, Alan?' asked Mrs
Stannard, almost as soon as she had sat down. 'You don't
mean to say she's not here?'
'Well, she will be very soon. She was coming up from
Bristol this morning and the silly girl missed the earlier
train. She's due in any time now
and she'll be taking a taxi
up.'
'Oh, good! I do hope the train's not late,' said Barbara.
'We've been so much looking forward to seeing her again.
What's she been doing at Bristol, Alan, if it's not a rude
question?'
'Keeping my Mum company. They've both been staying
with Florence and Bill, you see. Mother very much wanted
Kathe to go down there, you know, and I gather they've
all been having a whale of a time these last few days.'
It gave me some satisfaction to say this. Whatever my
guests might or might not have been thinking about Kathe
and my mother, the news that the two of them had just
spent three or four days together at Bristol couldn't but
allay local gossip - if there was any.
'Will your mother be living at Bristol now, then?' asked
Mrs Stannard. 'I do hope I'm not being too inquisitive, but
naturally we've all been wondering how things were going
to be arranged.'
267
I had already asked my mother what she wanted me to
say in reply to this sort of question, and we had agreed not
to anticipate the announcement in the Newbury News;
though if anything should happen to percolate up from
Bristol before then and I was asked straight out, of course
I should have to give a direct answer. I'd told Tony and
Freda in confidence, but otherwise no one at all.
'Well, things are being arranged splendidly, Mrs Stannard,
and they're going to burst upon an astonished world quite
soon. Stay tuned to Radio Desland for a further announcement.
It's all working out very well indeed, and Mum likes
Kathe tremendously, I'm glad to say.'
'How couldn't she?" interposed Lady Alice, who was adept
at steering any conversation along the right lines. 'Such a
charming gairl, isn't she?' (Corroborative murmurs.) 'And
so terribly clever, I think, the way she's fitting in, coming
here as a stranger from abroad and everything. I mean, her
English is so marvellously good! Now she's not here we can
all have a really nice gossip about her, can't we? Do tell us,
Mr Desland - I've been longing to ask - how ever did you
meet her and sweep her off her feet so quickly?"
'Yes, how did you meet her, Alan?' asked Barbara.
'Well-' I strolled across to the hearthrug, leant against
the mantelpiece and took a swig at my gin-and-tonic. 'It was
in Copenhagen.'
'Yes, we know that.'
'I saw her one afternoon, sitting in a park called the
Kongens Have. She was under a big lime tree, playing with
a little girl -'
'A little girl?'
'Yes, a friend's daughter, you know. I sat looking at her for
some time, actually; and then I saw they were going and I
thought, "Well, if you don't do something about this you're
never going to see her again." So I went up to her and asked,
"Do you mind if I say something to you?" She was rather
startled, of course, but anyway she asked what was it. So I
said, "Well, you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my
life. Will you have dinner with me this evening?"
'Alan, you didn't!'
268
'I assure you I did. So then I walked home with her and we
went out together that evening and had dinner at a restaurant
called the 'Golden Pheasant', and I remember some Danish
chap came up and presented her with a carnation because
he was a bit merry and apparently the sight of her just bowled
him over.'
'But d'you mean to say-'
'And then the next day we went out to Kronborg Castle
at Elsinore and we were walking on the battlements overlooking
the Kattegat and I asked her to marry me and she
said Yes.'
'Good heavens!' said Mrs Stannard. 'I never heard anything
so romantic in my life! Wasn't she a bit surprised?
What else did she say?'
'Oh, lots. Tis in my memory locked, And she herself shall
keep the key of it.'
They all laughed and then Barbara said, 'It sounds too
marvellous for words! But I mean, weren't her family rather
astonished - a man she'd met only the day before?'
'Well, they didn't actually know about the Desland blitzkrieg
until a bit later. You see -'
At this moment I heard the front door open and ten
seconds later Kathe walked into the room, carrying her suitcase.
She was wearing her rose-pink dress - the one she had
worn at Kronborg - with the navy-blue sandals from Ilium,
and no jewellery except the great pearl cluster above her
wedding ring. Looking at her - a clutch in my stomach - as
the dry dust of the past ninety hours crumbled and fell
away below, I felt, momentarily, as though there were no
one else in the room, and wondered why she did not at once
return my gaze. Mr Stannard and the other men stood up
and she put down the suitcase and threw out her hands,
laughing and motioning to them to sit down again.
'Oh, please, everybody! You are making me feel so silly!
But it's lovely to see you all; and so nice to be home again,
Alan!' She came quickly across the room, flung her arms
round my neck and kissed me warmly. 'M'mm! That's
better!' She turned back to the others. 'I'm so sorry not to
have been here when you all arrived. I hope Alan's been
269
looking after you?' (Polite murmurs.) 'I won't be more than a
minute. I'll come straight back.'
'Don't hurry, dear,' said Mrs Stannard. 'We're all quite
comfortable!'
'Well, less than ten minutes, anyway,' smiled Kathe;
picked up her suitcase once more and went out of the room,
leaving the door ajar.
'Now you really wouldn't think that gairl had spent the
morning on a train, would you?' said Lady Alice, expecting
the answer No, which she duly got.
'Can I give you some more sherry?' I asked her.
'Well, just half a glass, Mr Desland, thank you. Really
half a glass.'
I had just topped her up and put down the decanter when
Kathe called out - from the kitchen, as it seemed - 'Alan,
can you come and give me a hand for a minute?'
'Sorry - 'won't be a tick,' I said, and went out into the
hall.
'Where are you, darling?'
'Here.'
I went into the kitchen. Kathe, facing me, was sitting on
the table swinging her legs. I have never in my life seen
anyone look more radiantly happy.
'Alan! Alan!'
I raised two fingers to my temple in what some people
call a 'gamekeeper's salute'.
'Something you wanted, ma'am?'
She held out her arms to me and I, oblivious of all else,
stepped forward and embraced her where she sat, kissing her
eyelids and her lips and holding her close against me. Responding
passionately and pressing her open mouth to mine,
she flung back her head and leaned backwards, uttering
tiny, inarticulate moans of pleasure and rocking slightly from
her hips, so that her dress, beneath my hands, moved up and
&
nbsp; down against her body. Then, sliding gently forward on the
table, she clasped me with her legs as well as her arms.
Suddenly I realized that beneath her dress she was cornpletely
naked; and she, having already foreseen my dis270
covery, gave a little, quick gurgle of laughter, drawing my
hands here and there so that I should be in no doubt.
At that moment the guests, not forty feet away in the next
room, meant no more to me than the birds in the garden.
For all I knew or cared someone might have been standing in
the doorway. I had no sense of where I was, of the time or
place or of anything that might be happening round us. I
felt her hand at my loins; and I felt the table slide and grate
on the tiled floor beneath us, and for that I cared nothing
either.
Kathe's mouth was against my ear, kissing and whispering,
'Ah! Ah! Yes, come on then my darling, come on, my love!
Quietly, quietly - that's my dear love. Oh, that's it, that's
right! Oh, I've wanted you so, night and day. Quietly, my
sweetheart!'
A voice - God knows whose - Tony's, I think - called out
from the drawing-room, 'Are you all right, Alan? Want any
help?' and Kathe, in a tone of complete self-possession,
called back, 'No, we're doing fine, thanks! Won't be a
minute!' Then, as she held my thrusting body against her,
taking my head between her hands and once more pressing
my mouth to hers - to make sure I kept quiet, I dare say I
was swept into a blinding rapture, like a wave shattering on
a rock. I seemed to dissolve. I could hear nothing, see
nothing. The voluptuous spouting seemed not from within
my own body but a tide pouring through me, drenching me,
an all-enveloping flood pulling and combing me out in long
strands like tidal seaweed. 'If it doesn't subside in a
moment,' I thought, 'I believe I'm going to faint.'
Then Kathe was gently lifting, supporting me half-upright
with her hands on my shoulders. I was standing on the
kitchen floor, looking down at her, dazed and speechless.
She laughed softly, her fingers quick and busy.
'Please adjust your dress before leaving. Oh, darling, I
love you, love you, Alan!'
She stood up herself, buttoning and smoothing the pink
linen. Then, smiling at me with a finger on her lips, she
walked quickly across to the 'fridge, took out two bottles
271
of tonic and an empty plastic ice-bucket and went back to
the drawing-room.
'Maddening, isn't it?' she was saying as I followed her in.
'That 'fridge door seems to choose its own time to jam.
I'll have to get it seen to. 'Just as well Alan knows its little
ways. He's so handy with his screw-driver, he ought to be
opening safes, really.'
'Never mind, dear,' said Lady Alice maternally. 'Come and
sit down here and tell me all about Bristol. I hear you had a
wonderful time. Of course you'd never been there before? Did
you see the Clifton suspension bridge? Do you know, the
first time I saw that bridge was just after the Great War. I
must have been about ten ...'
As the Stannards, last to go, drove away, I turned to Kathe
on the gravel.
'Kathe! What on earth got into you?'
'Why, you did, darling!'
'I don't know whether to smack you, crown you with
roses or have you certified! That was mad - crazy! If someone
had come in -'
'M'm, but they didn't, did they? Or did they, d'you suppose?
No, don't worry, darling, they couldn't have, because
they'd ceased to exist, you see.'
'But listen -'
'Oh, no, I know! They were frozen in time, like the people
dancing in "Les Visiteurs du Soir" - did you ever see it? and
of course we were outside time, so -'
'Kathe, please listen! I've got a local position to keep up -'
She roared with laughter. 'But you did keep it up splendidly!
It was all just impulse, Alan dear. I was carried
away! How could I help it, you're so wonderful-'
'Impulse my foot!' I ran my hand up the length of her
dress. 'What about that? You planned it! You intended it!
You must have -'
'M'mm! Lovely!' Suddenly she turned and faced me,
looking into my eyes with a kind of haughty, almost angered
272
authority, like a queen with whom a subject has presumed to
go a little too far.
'Well, and shouldn't I feel like that? Aren't I your love
and your wife? I couldn't wait to be with you, and why the
hell should I have to, on other people's account? Stupid
people! What do they matter? I'd give the whole world for