Au Reservoir (23 page)

‘I still think there’s more to this than meets the eye,’ Elizabeth said. ‘What’s Lucia being so mysterious about if she has nothing to hide?’

‘You still think she’s up to something, Liz-girl?’ the Major asked.

‘Well, of course I do,’ she said in exasperation. ‘We all know she is constantly scheming against me. Just because I got the details wrong it doesn’t mean I’m wrong about that. It’s just like the business with the coach. We know she stole the idea, but we can’t prove how.’

She glowered for a while and the Major reached cautiously for his newspaper, hoping this might mark an end to the conversation. In this he was to be disappointed.

‘I’ve got it!’ she remarked suddenly.

Major Benjy looked at her expectantly.

‘You got it yourself, only you couldn’t see it.’

‘I did?’

‘Yes, you clever boy. You said that we only ever play with the same ten people. Well, so do they.’

She gazed at him triumphantly, and was disappointed to see him shake his head.

‘Not sure I follow,’ he said, somewhat unnecessarily.

‘Don’t you see? If we all only ever play with the same people, and eight out of ten are already spoken for, then the other eight must all be playing together.’

‘You mean – ?’

‘Exactly! I mean that the Wyses are playing with Lucia and Georgie but for some reason they’ve agreed to keep it all a big secret. That’s why they ran off so quickly when we tried to speak to them about it, and that’s why Lulu is running this cock and bull story about “having lots of offers”. Offers, fiddlesticks! It’s all just a ruse.’

‘But why would they do that?’ asked the Major, looking bewildered.

‘To shut us out, of course. I got it wrong, but then perhaps I couldn’t quite believe that even that woman would stoop so low. She’s deliberately got everyone to pair off amongst themselves without telling us, knowing that it will leave us two out on a limb with nobody to play with.’

‘I say,’ gasped the Major, ‘that’s a bit thick.’

‘A bit thick is right, Benjy. Despicable, I call it.’

The Major was still digesting this new revelation.

‘In that case, Liz,’ he said slowly, ‘I can only say that I look forward with relish to your flank attack. With relish, I say.’

He cocked his head in quizzical style, but his wife would not be drawn.

‘Thank you, Benjy boy,’ was all she said.

‘Er, when are you thinking of launching it?’ he asked casually.

‘When the time is right,’ she replied non-committally. ‘After all, revenge is a dish best eaten cold, isn’t it?

‘And,’ she went on, ‘there’s the fête coming up on Saturday, so don’t give up hope on the frontal assault either. Just because she has weaselled her way out of inviting Noël Coward to open the thing doesn’t mean that people can’t point the fact out from time to time. When Georgie has finished, for example, and everyone is saying what a good job he made of it, we can always say something like, “Yes, but what a pity it turned out Mrs Pillson didn’t know Noël Coward after all” now, can’t we?’

‘Yes,’ Major Benjy said determinedly. ‘We certainly can.’

He picked up his newspaper, but then something occurred to him and he laid it down again.

‘I say, Liz-girl,’ he said, ‘is it really true that we don’t have any friends?’

‘O
lga, dear,’ Lucia was saying on the phone. ‘I really don’t know how I can ever thank you. You really have ridden to the rescue, just as if you were Brünnhilde in real life. Or is it Eva? Goodness, how dreadfully difficult
Parsifal
is.’

‘Oh, never mind that,’ said Olga diffidently, ‘I just pulled a few strings, that’s all.’

‘Pulled them to great effect, nonetheless, Olga. I am in your debt, I find, though I understand we are to lose our last six bottles of some wine or other that Georgie will feel it a great wrench to be without.’

‘Yes, I’m sorry about that,’ Olga replied. ‘It was just one of those moments, you know, when you feel events are at a tipping point and you just need to throw one last thing into the scales finally to tip the balance in your favour.’

‘I understand entirely,’ Lucia said truthfully, for was she not also an aficionado of the fine art of manipulating human behaviour? ‘Think nothing of it. It is a small price to pay.’

‘Now, are you quite clear about the plan?’ Olga asked.

‘Yes, dear. The staff to prepare for three house guests this weekend, but mum’s the word about who they are. Cadman to drive Georgie to Tenterden and then carry on to Ashford Station with orders to look out for you coming off the London train. Everyone invited to dine at 7.30.’

Lucia gave a delighted little laugh.

‘You know, I might even be naughty and put
“po’ di mu”
on the invitations. Naturally they’ll be expecting me and Georgie, not you and Noël Coward.’

Olga laughed too.

‘That would be a masterstroke,’ she agreed. ‘Well, until Saturday, then.’

‘Au reservoir,’ Lucia trilled gaily.

A little later Lucia put on her hat, picked up her shopping basket and went out into the High Street with a spring in her step. Georgie was at her side, for he was anxious to visit the gentleman’s outfitters and enquire after their progress in steaming his top hat and re-elasticating his spats. The sponging of his morning dress tails and the pressing of his pinstripe trousers could, he felt, safely be left to Foljambe.

As fate would have it, the very first people they encountered were the Mapp-Flints, who were just emerging from Twistevant’s, the greengrocer.

‘Elizabeth, dear,’ Lucia said at once, ‘not still looking for teammates, I trust?’

‘At the moment, dear, yes,’ Mapp said in as off-hand fashion as she could manage, and then coolly continued with, ‘By the way, I understand you are playing with the Wyses?’

This, she felt, was a deft parry, conveying the clear impression that this news had been imparted to her by the Wyses, but without actually saying so explicitly.

‘Dear me, no,’ Lucia said at once. ‘I cannot think who may have given you that impression. Surely not the Wyses? I understand they are playing with some friends from Maidstone whom they have invited to stay the weekend.’

‘Some friends from Maidstone?’ Mapp echoed, as if this was the most outlandish suggestion she had ever encountered.

‘That’s right. So nice to have lots of friends, don’t you think? And in so many different places as well.’

The Major said ‘Quite’, while his wife struggled for a suitable answer. Then she found it.

‘Just like you, worship, always off to Riseholme and London. Why, we should be grateful that you have any time to spare for poor little Tilling at all.’

‘Perhaps you’re right, Elizabeth,’ Lucia said thoughtfully. ‘I must make sure that I don’t neglect Tilling, mustn’t I? We must have more weekend house parties, Georgie, just like the old days, don’t you think?’

‘Well, yes,’ Georgie nodded.

‘Yes, indeed, Georgie. I must make sure that instead of going to my friends, my friends come to me. And you should do the same, of course, Elizabeth. Hold house parties. Invite your friends from all over the country. Why, you might even find that some of them are free for the weekend of the bridge tournament. Invite them all – the more the merrier!’

‘And may we hope,’ Mapp asked, fixing Lucia with an earnest smile, ‘that Noël Coward will feature on your guest list? I have always so much wanted to meet him.’

‘Perhaps, dear, perhaps, who knows?’ Lucia replied vaguely.

‘I say,’ Major Benjy said suddenly, ‘enough of all this beating about the bush. If you’re not playing with the Wyses, then who the devil
are
you playing with?’

Georgie and Lucia looked at each other. Georgie was about to reply but Lucia, in a rare moment of physical contact, squeezed his elbow.

‘Ah well, I can see that our little secret will have to come out,’ she said laughingly. ‘The truth is that Georgie and I have agreed to play with two visitors. Poor things, they are complete strangers to Tilling, so they won’t know a soul. We thought it would be the charitable thing to do to take them under our wing.’

‘Goodness,’ said Mapp, ‘I had no idea so many outsiders would be coming to play.’

‘Why yes, Elizabeth,’ Lucia responded, affecting surprise, ‘that’s the whole point, surely? To put Tilling firmly on the map as a bridge venue. Why, it may be that by next year even the town hall will not be a large enough venue to hold everyone who wants to come.’

‘Build a new town hall, why not?’ Mapp suggested with her trademark brand of heavy sarcasm.

‘I don’t think so, dear,’ Lucia said, shaking her head, ‘not with all these new building restrictions and planning regulations. No, quite impossible, I fear. Well, au reservoir.’

As the Mapp-Flints continued down the road they passed a painter who was applying white gloss painstakingly to the window frame of a leaded window. They paused, for the Major knew that his wife enjoyed watching, hawk-like, while a tradesman made some trifling mistake which could then be made the subject of caustic comment. Opportunities for caustic comment were becoming available less and less frequently, and she wondered briefly whether it had anything to do with the Labour Government (a topic on which she and Lucia were in rare agreement).

Sadly on this occasion she was to be disappointed as the painter, his tongue protruding between his teeth with the intensity of his concentration, brought the paint right to the edge of the glass but never quite encroaching upon it.

Clearly some cheerful congratulation was in order so Mapp scowled, turned on her heel and began to stalk away.

‘There you are,’ Major Benjy said, oblivious for the moment to his wife’s impending departure, ‘splendid job, what? Always a joy to see a professional in action.’

Elizabeth Mapp-Flint paused in mid-stride. In truth it was but a momentary pause, since balancing on one leg was a skill which she had never mastered, even as a young girl when, quite solidly figured even then, she had attempted to pluck imaginary apples off an imaginary tree during Saturday morning ballet classes. Yet it was a discernible pause, nonetheless.

‘What did you say, Benjy?’

‘Always a joy to see a professional in action,’ he replied. ‘You know, there was this woman in Rawalpindi, handsome little piece she was too, and she could do things …’

He became aware that his wife was staring at him in a manner which suggested that this line of reminiscence should perhaps go no further.

‘Ah, yes,’ he said lamely.

‘I think you’ve done it again, Benjy,’ she said.

‘Done what?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘Don’t think so. Not me. Someone else entirely. Obviously all a misunderstanding.’

‘Yes, you have,’ she urged him with a giggle.

The Major now looked very alarmed indeed. He had never heard his wife giggle before, and he doubted whether any good would come of it.

‘You are wonderful, dear man,’ she cooed. ‘You have such a clever ability to find the answer to any problem.’

Still with no idea at all as to what she was talking about, the Major decided to smile modestly and stroke his moustache, a combination which had been known to set various female hearts a-flutter over the years.

‘Well, don’t you see?’ she asked, taking his arm. ‘There are professional bridge players who will play with you for money, just like there are professional painters who will paint your house for money rather than you doing it yourself. I’m sure there are. I remember reading about them. All we have to do is find two and pay them to be our teammates.’

‘I say,’ the Major said reverentially, ‘that’s a real brainwave, Liz, old girl.

‘Hang on, though,’ he went on after a few paces, ‘if they’re professionals that means they’ll be pretty good, doesn’t it? Stands to reason if they make their living playing the game.’

‘I really hadn’t thought about that,’ Elizabeth replied, almost convincingly, ‘I was just trying to find a way for us to take part in the tournament.’

‘But doesn’t that mean,’ the Major persisted like a dog with a bone, ‘that we’re likely to do well? Why, with professional bridge players as partners we might even win the damn thing.’

‘I suppose it’s always possible,’ his wife replied archly. ‘Why, would you like to win, Benjy?’

‘A cash prize? Rather!’

The Major imagined being handed a pile of banknotes. Instantly they seemed to grow fuzzy, and transform themselves into a van from his wine merchants arriving at Glebe and disgorging cases of whisky, claret and port. Puffing contentedly at his pipe, he watched the delivery men carry case after case into the house, and slipped his arm around the slender waist of a beautiful Indian woman clad in a sari. Responding to his touch, she nestled contentedly closer …

‘Well, let’s see,’ Elizabeth said, breaking in upon his reverie.

As the pavement narrowed and her substantial hips swung towards him, the Major stepped resignedly into the road.

That afternoon Elizabeth Mapp-Flint boarded the train to Hastings, where she visited the public library, a much larger and more fully stocked resource than the one which nestled in a side street in Tilling. She scoured the shelves of periodicals and after much effort managed to find a bridge magazine which was no more than about six months old. Seizing upon it, she sat down at a table and began poring over its contents.

The articles she found frankly incomprehensible. What was all this nonsense about ‘second player plays low’? Suppose one has the winning card? And anyway, to play low was surely to put an overdue amount of trust in one’s partner, always a reckless undertaking in Elizabeth Mapp-Flint’s opinion. As for ‘signalling’, what on earth was that all about? She had thought it was frowned upon to communicate with one’s partner as to what lead was expected, though she had been known occasionally to gaze intently at her ring (meaning ‘diamonds’) or cough and tap herself on the chest (‘hearts’). Her system at least had the benefit of being straightforward and therefore capable of being readily understood. The one proposed, of using high and low cards, struck her as nonsensical. Who watched what cards their partner played anyway? She snorted with derision (an effect at which she was well practised and thus carried off with a fair amount of style) and turned to the notices at the back.