Bone Idle (14 page)

Later that week I had a luncheon appointment: one of the bishop’s ‘intimate’ At Homes given periodically when Gladys has a social rush of blood to the head. In fact, they are generally far from intimate – chilly, cumbersome affairs from which few depart unscathed. However, having missed the last one, and in view of my new canonical status, I thought it politic to attend.

Besides, hope springs eternal, and after the abrasions of Primrose and the Crumpelmeyers, the prospect of taking lunch in civilized surroundings – even among the Clinkers – was not without appeal. There would be a reasonable dose of wines and liqueurs, and even the possibility of congenial conversation with the other guests. The real snag was Gladys, but to mollify her I had armed myself with a large box of very expensive Charbonnel et Walker chocolates, hoping they might help parry the brickbats. Thus, dressed even more soberly than usual and bearing my gift well to the fore, I presented myself at the episcopal portals exactly five minutes after the prescribed time, and rang the bell.

Surprisingly, it was Clinker himself who opened the door and beckoned me in with what I can only describe as a furtive finger. This he put to his lips and said in a low tone, ‘Glad you could get here, Oughterard. I might warn you that Myrtle is with us and the lamb is burnt.’

I was nonplussed by this information but produced a sympathetic smile and a muttered ‘Ah yes.’ Who Myrtle was I had no idea. Was she perhaps the new cook tested and found wanting by the main course …?

‘Yes,’ he went on, still
sotto voce
, ‘she flew in yesterday from Brussels, since when life here has been purgatory!’

Comprehension dawned. It was the dreaded sister-in-law from Belgium. This was grim news indeed. The prospect of Gladys reinforced by the fabled sister was unnerving to say the least. However, I put on a brave face and followed my host into the drawing room.

A number of people were already assembled, house guests presumably or near neighbours, but over by the window I espied Archdeacon Foggarty conversing with a woman of mammoth proportion. Caught in the sunlight, his hair seemed more virulently ginger than usual, but his face was white and uncharacteristically strained. Was the combination of office and his predecessor’s attentive ‘guidance’ already taking its toll? Quite possibly. However, there was little time to ponder Foggarty’s health, for I was swiftly buttonholed by Gladys and subjected to the usual barrage of patronizing questions. I thrust the chocolates at her, a gesture which momentarily stopped the flow and allowed me to slip sideways to a hovering maid with a tray of martinis. Thus armed, and with vacuous smile, I generously forfeited my place to another victim.

Various people I recognized, and a few whom it was agreeable to talk to. Another martini was offered, and I was just beginning to feel a degree of burgeoning warmth when Foggarty sidled up and tapped me on the elbow. He looked even more harassed than when I had first seen him.

‘Good to see you, Francis,’ he murmured quietly. And nodding in the direction of my drink asked, ‘Are there any more of those around?’

Looking at his strained features it struck me that I was talking to a man in need, and in a moment of aberrant altruism I passed him mine.

He grasped it gratefully and rather to my surprise polished it off in a trice.

‘That’s better!’ he muttered, and then seeing my look of enquiry, smiled sheepishly. ‘Rather a tough time, I fear!’

I was about to ask what he meant, when he added with a broad grin, ‘But your turn next, I fancy.’

‘Sorry – I’m not quite clear …’ I began.

‘You will be,’ he replied cryptically, and still grinning sloped off to the far end of the room.

What on earth could he mean? What did Carrot Top know that I didn’t? I stood perplexed and then heard Gladys’s booming voice chivvying the ladies to lead the way into the dining room. As the rest of us dutifully followed, Clinker caught up with me and, waving a piece of paper under my nose, announced, ‘I see you’ve got Myrtle!’

‘Er …?’

‘You’re on her left. It’s down here in black and white.’ And stabbing a sadistic finger, he pointed to the table plan in his hand. I said nothing, circled the table, found my place card … and glanced to my right. She was there, Foggarty’s erstwhile companion – vast, billowing and, it would seem, furious.

As I pulled out her chair she glared and said in a loud stage whisper, ‘Typical of Gladys, she knew very well I wished to be seated next to Sir Gerald, there is
so
much I need to speak to him about. They are coming to Brussels in September, you know, to the embassy, and there are all manner of things I could have advised him upon.’ I glanced down the table at the diminutive Sir Gerald who looked remarkably unperturbed by his loss; indeed, was getting exceedingly chummy with Clinker’s niece, a pretty, busty girl clearly commanding all his attention.

Myrtle scowled in her direction and then at me. ‘And you are …?’ she queried irritably.

I gave my name, adding as a vague afterthought, ‘Er, Canon actually … from Molehill, rather a small place, you probably won’t have heard …’

‘Well, Canon Molehill,’ she observed, ‘all I can say is I hope you don’t have a fondness for meat – my dear sister has wrecked the lamb again. She does it time after time. I gave her an excellent Belgian recipe only last Easter, but will she follow it? Not one jot. Stubborn as a mule – hence my sitting here and not next to Sir Gerald! Oh well, one will have to make do, I suppose.’ And so saying, she turned abruptly to the man on her right. Her bulk obscured his identity but I was grateful to him nonetheless.

My other neighbour being also engaged, I busied myself with the soup: Mock Turtle – very mock – and I contemplated with gloom the impending lamb. In fact, as lamb goes and despite the dire warnings, this proved rather good; and fortified by two tolerable glasses of claret I started to experience moderate enjoyment.

However, this was swiftly curtailed by Myrtle suddenly turning back to me and saying, ‘I gathered from the archdeacon that yours is the parish where that dastardly crime was committed. My brother-in-law mumbled something about it, but of course I never listen to
him
, and Gladys is rarely to be relied upon. Still, I’ve managed to glean a few details from the Venerable Foggarty – not that he was particularly forthcoming, spent all the time coughing and clearing his throat. Typical of the clergy, they can never say yea or nay to anything! Now, Canon, what I want to know …’ She broke off. ‘
What
did you say your name was?’

‘Oughterard,’ I answered bleakly.

‘How peculiar … Anyway, what I want to know is,
who
did it?’

Like Foggarty I also cleared my throat. ‘Uhm … it’s not known really, bit of a mystery, I suppose …’

‘Well, it has no business being a mystery! I don’t know what the police are doing these days. They’re as ineffectual as the Church. All part of this namby-pamby liberalism! Personally I’d have them all castrated.’

‘The police?’ I exclaimed.

‘Not the police, the criminals of course. Murderers, like the one near your vicarage. That would teach him!’

I gasped. ‘Isn’t that a bit excessive? I mean, what good would it do?’

‘Stop them breeding,’ she said darkly, ‘that’s what!’

‘Yes, I imagine it would,’ I replied, folding my hands nervously in my lap.

Thankfully, at that point the pudding appeared and I hastily began to enthuse about its colour and texture, both of which were dreadful.

With the arrival of the brandy the ladies mercifully withdrew, and for a brief space I was able to relax and listen to the talk around the table. Not that this was exactly scintillating, but after the onslaught from Myrtle and the braying tones of Gladys, conversation of any quality seemed a blessed relief. The departure of the siblings clearly had its effect on Clinker too, for he became genially expansive and started dishing out cigars as if they were liquorice sticks.

I have to admit to not being terribly practised with cigars, finding cigarettes considerably more manageable; however, it would have been churlish to refuse, and after a few false starts trying to light the thing, I began to enjoy the novelty. Thus, wrapped in a pall of fragrant fumes, I took another sip of cognac, settled back in my chair, and prepared to savour the remainder of the interlude.

I was just doing this and trying to keep up with the meanderings of a shaggy dog’s tale being told by my neighbour, when I heard the bishop’s voice bawling down the table: ‘I say, Oughterard, you’re supposed to smoke the thing, not chew it! Best Havanas these are, not Wills’ piddling Whiffs!’ The admonition was accompanied by a snort of mirth signalling general merriment.

My discomfort was partially defused by the reedy voice of Sir Gerald observing that he had once owned a Labrador puppy who liked nothing better than a good dish of butt-ends for breakfast. This brought further merriment and I was grateful for the diversion, though not entirely pleased to be bracketed with Sir Gerald’s puppy-dog.

Despite that hiccup, things proceeded affably enough – until interrupted by a loud hammering on the door and a voice crying, ‘Come along now, you’ve been in there for at least fifty minutes. Kindly come out
at once
, we are waiting!’ Gladys.

‘Oh well,’ said Clinker sighing, ‘better go in, I suppose …’

Once more in the drawing room, we joined the ladies already engaged on the coffee and liqueurs. I was pleased to note my box of dark chocolates being unwrapped by my hostess, who proceeded to pass them around.

‘Personally,’ she announced, ‘I
much
prefer milk chocolate, plain is so bitter! However,’ she continued, casting a wintry smile in my direction, ‘we don’t look nice gift horses in the mouth, do we?’ I returned her smile with one of dazzling sweetness and mentally topped up her glass with cyanide.

On the sofa next to me was a small woman dowdily dressed and amazingly quiet. I took to her like a duck to water. But she blotted her copybook by suddenly saying in an earnest voice: ‘I gather you are the great authority on the Bone Idol – you know, the Beano pig. I have always wanted to meet someone who really knows its history!’

I stared transfixed at my coffee cup. And then finding my voice, mumbled something about there being nothing much to know really.

‘Oh, you scholars are always so modest!’ she exclaimed. ‘My friend Claude Blenkinsop says you are a fount of knowledge and a real expert on the subject. Do tell us something about it!’

Bloody Blenkinsop! Bloody Ingaza! Bloody Beano!

All eyes were turned on me. I raked the circle of enquiring faces, desperately trying to recall a few facts from the potted history that Nicholas had forced me to read.

Unwittingly it was Clinker who retrieved the situation. He had obviously overdone the brandy; and flushed of face and glazed of eye, bellowed with laughter and cried: ‘Can’t think that Francis is a fount of knowledge on anything – except White Ladies perhaps!’

‘Really? Fancy that! Just shows that canons know a thing or two,’ cried Sir Gerald. ‘What proportions would you recommend, Oughterard?’

I was able to instruct him with clarity and authority. But even as I spoke, I was pondering the extraordinary fact that Clinker had actually mentioned the name of the cocktails which, eighteen months previously, had rendered him merrily senseless on my sitting-room carpet. It was an incident which ever since had been shrouded in complicit silence – indeed, I had rather assumed it was carefully expunged from his conscious memory. Presumably the brandy (and possibly the trauma of Myrtle) had pulled the bucket from the well. In any event, it was a timely diversion and I was glad.

My sofa companion looked disappointed and seemed poised to pursue the matter further, but by then the party was beginning to break up and I made sure I was among the first to leave.

When I got home, despite feeling a little fragile from the effects of the alcohol and the joint proclamations of Gladys and Myrtle, I managed to put in a couple of hours of much delayed paperwork. And then feeling both tired and virtuous, I gathered the dog and set off for our evening walk.

At first Bouncer was full of beans, straining at the leash, prancing at passers-by and, once let loose, bounding vigorously after ball and sticks. But on the way back as we neared the vicarage, his mood seemed to change. The bounce slackened, his gait slowed and he started to make odd little whining noises. This was strange, for normally on such occasions, once the initial exuberance subsides it is rapidly replaced by a jaunty eagerness as, mission accomplished, we head for home and food. This time, however, he seemed distinctly reluctant, dragging heavily on the lead and with the whines turning into hostile growls. I was perplexed as there seemed no cause for such display, but assumed there must be a fox or alien cat lurking in nearby undergrowth. But then he suddenly stood stock still, back legs stiffened and muzzle projected as if he were some sort of pointer! I had not seen this particular performance before and was intrigued. He continued to emit low growls, and I scanned the bushes trying to discern the object of such charade. There was nothing.

‘Oh, do come on, Bouncer!’ I protested. ‘We’ll never get home at this rate.’ He looked up briefly, but continued to stand his ground, ears cocked and tail quivering. And then, just for a moment I thought I heard footsteps – which I suppose I must have, for there was the sudden splutter of a car engine revving into life, and an unlit shape loomed slowly around the corner from the vicarage and purred off into the dark.

It seemed to be the dog’s cue for action, for instantly the whole street was rent by his frenzied shrieks and barks, and what had been a twitching statue turned into a roaring, dancing dynamo. Deafened and embarrassed, I dragged him the remaining yards and scuttled into the house before attracting the attention of irate neighbours. Just as we gained the sanctuary of the hall, the telephone rang. The dog bounded noisily into the kitchen and I picked up the receiver. It was Clinker.