Clutch of Constables (3 page)

Troy consulted her passenger list. Mr Earl J. and Miss Sally-Lou Hewson had arrived. She stowed away her baggage and then went up to the saloon.

They were all there except the three latest arrivals. Dr Natouche sat by himself reading a newspaper with a glass of beer to hand. Miss Rickerby-Carrick, in conversation with Mr Pollock, occupied a seat that ran round the forward end of the saloon under the windows. Mr Caley Bard who evidently had been waiting for Troy, at once reminded her that she was to have a drink with him. “Mrs Tretheway,” he said, “mixes a superb Martini.”

She was behind the little bar, displayed in the classic manner within a frame of bottles and glasses, many of which were splintered by sunlight. She herself had a kind of local iridescence: she looked superb. Mr Pollock kept glancing at her with a half-smile on his lips and then turning away again. Miss Rickerby-Carrick gazed at her with a kind of anguished wonder. Mr Bard expressed his appreciation in what Troy was to learn was a very characteristic manner.

“The Bar at the Folies Bergères may as well shut up shop,” he said to Troy. “Manet would have changed his drinking habits. You, by the way, could show him where he gets off.” And he gave Troy a little bow and a very knowing smile. “You ought to have a go,” he suggested. “Don’t,” she said hurriedly. “Please.” He laughed and leant across the bar to pay for their drinks. Mrs Tretheway gave Troy a woman-to-woman look that included her fabulous smile.

Even Dr Natouche lowered his paper and contemplated Mrs Tretheway with gravity for several seconds.

At the back of the bar hung a framed legend, rather shakily typed.

“Isn’t that charming?” Mr Bard asked Troy. “Don’t you think so?”

“The magic of the proper name,” Troy agreed. “Especially those names. It always does the trick, doesn’t it?”

Mrs Tretheway said, “A chap that cruised with us gave it to me. He said it was out of some kid’s book.”

“It’s got the right kind of dream-sound for that,” Troy said. She thought she would like to make a picture of the Signs and put the rhyme in the middle. Perhaps before the cruise was over—

“To make it rhyme,” Mrs Tretheway pointed out, “you have to say ‘pote’. ‘The Man that carries the Watering-pote’.”

She pushed their drinks across the bar. The back of her hand brushed Mr Bard’s fingers.

“You’ll join us, I hope,” he said.

“Another time, thanks all the same. I’ve got to look after your lunch. It’s cold—what do they call it—smorgasbord, for today. If everybody would help themselves when they’re ready.”

She went over to the hatch into the cuddy. Tom, the boy, had gone below and handed up the dishes to his mother who set them out on the tables that had been pushed together and covered with a white cloth.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Mrs Tretheway repeated. “Please help yourselves,” and returned to the bar where she jangled a handbell.

Without consulting Troy, Mr Bard ordered two more dry Martinis. This was not Troy’s favourite drink and in any case the first had been extremely strong.

“No, really, thank you,” she said. “
Not
for me. I’m for my lunch.”

“Well,” he said. “P’rhaps you’re right. We’ll postpone until dinner time. Let moderation be our cry.”

It now occurred to Troy that Mr Bard was making a dead set at her. Gratifying though this might or might not be, it did not fit in with her plan for a five days’ anonymous dawdle along the British Inland Waterways. Mr Bard, it was evident, had twigged Troy. He had this morning visited her one-man show for the opening of which, last evening, she had come up from London. He had been cunning enough to realise that she wanted to remain unrecognised. Evidently he was disposed to torment her about this and to set up a kind of alliance on the strength of it. Mr Bard was a tease.

There was a place beside Dr Natouche at the end of a circular seat that ran under the forward windows of the saloon. Troy helped herself to cold meat and salad and sat beside him. He half-rose and made her a little bow. “I hope you are pleased with the accommodation,” he said. “I find it perfectly satisfactory.”

There was an extraordinary quality in Dr Natouche, Troy suddenly decided. It was a quality that made one intensely aware of him, as if with the awareness induced by some drug: aware of his thin, charcoal wrist emerging from a white silk cuff, of the movements of his body under his clothes, of his quiet breathing, of his smell which was of wood:—cedarwood or even sandalwood.

He had neatly folded his newspaper and laid it beside his plate. Troy, glancing at it, saw herself having her hand shaken by the Personage who had opened her show. Was it possible that Dr Natouche had not recognised this photograph? “I really don’t know,” she thought, “why I fuss about it. If I were a film star it would be something to take-on about but who cares for painters? The truth of the matter is,” Troy thought, “I never know what to say when people who don’t paint talk to me about my painting. I get creaky with shyness and hear myself mumbling and am idiotic.”

Dr Natouche, however, did not talk about painting. He talked about the weather and the days to come and he sounded a little like one of the Pleasure-Craft and Riverage Company’s pamphlets…“There will be a great deal of historic interest,” he said, calmly.

He had moved away from Troy to give her plenty of room. She was as conscious of the distance between them as if she had measured it in inches.

“All the arrangements are charming,” concluded Dr Natouche.

Mr and Miss Hewson now appeared. They seemed to be the dead norm of unpretentious American tourists. Miss Hewson was fairish, shortish and compact in shape. Her brother was tall, thin and bespectacled and wore a hearing-aid. They both looked hygienic and practical.

“Well, now,” Miss Hewson said, “if we aren’t just the slowest things to settle. Pardon us, folks.”

Mrs Tretheway from behind the bar introduced them to the assembled company and in a pleasant, sensible fashion they repeated each name as they heard it while the British murmured and smiled. Dr Natouche reciprocated in this ritual and Troy wondered if he too was an American but could hear no trace of it in his voice. West Indian? African? Pakistan?

“One to come,” Miss Rickerby-Carrick presently announced, excitedly tossing salad into her mouth. “You’re not the last.” She had been talking energetically to the Hewsons who looked dazed and baffled. She indicated a copy of the passenger list that had been put on the table. Troy had already noticed that the name K. G. Z. Andropulos had been struck out opposite Cabin 7 and that her own had not been substituted. Mr Bard with one of his off-beat glances at her, now reached out for the card and made good this omission. “We may as well,” he said, “be all shipshape and Bristol fashion.”, Troy saw that he had spelt her surname correctly but obligingly prefaced it merely by the initials A. T. She couldn’t help giving him a look in return and he tipped her another of his squinny winks.

Miss Rickerby-Carrick began playfully to whisper: “What do you think? Shall we guess? What will he be?” She pointed to Mr J. de B. Lazenby’s name on the card and looked archly round the company.

They were spared the necessity of reply by the entrance of Mr Lazenby himself.

In a way, Troy felt, it was something of an anti-climax. Mr Lazenby was a clergyman.

It was also a surprise. One did not, somehow, associate the clergy, except in the upper reaches of their hierarchy, with expensive cars and uniformed chauffeurs. Mr Lazenby gave out no particular air of affluence. He was tall, rather pink and thinly crested and he wore dark glasses, an immaculate clerical grey suit, a blue pullover and the regulation dog-collar. Mrs Tretheway from behind the bar, where to Troy’s fancy, she had become a kind of Oracle, pronounced his name and added sensibly that he would no doubt find out in due course who everybody was.

“Surely, surely,” said Mr Lazenby in a slightly antipodean, faintly parsonic voice.

“But,” cried Miss Rickerby-Carrick, “it doesn’t say in the passenger-list. It doesn’t say Rev… Now, why is that?”

“I expect,” said Mr Lazenby who was helping himself to luncheon, “it was because I applied for my reservation by letter. From Melbourne. I didn’t, I think, declare my cloth.”

He smiled at her, composed himself, bent his head for a moment, scratched a miniature cross on his jumper and sat down by Mr Pollock. “This looks delicious,” he said.

“Very tasty,” said Mr Pollock woodenly and helped himself to pickles.

Luncheon went forward in little desultory gusts of conversation. Items of information were exchanged. The Hewsons had come up from the Tabard Inn at Stratford-upon-Avon where on Saturday night they had seen a performance of
Macbeth
which they had thought peculiar. Mr Lazenby had been staying with the Bishop of Norminster. Mr Pollock had caught the London train in Birmingham where he had lodged at the Osborn Hotel. Dr Natouche and Miss Rickerby-Carrick had come from their respective homes. Miss Hewson guessed that she and her brother were not the only non-Britishers aboard, addressing her remark to Mr Lazenby but angling, Troy thought, for a reaction from Dr Natouche who did not, however, respond. Mr Lazenby expounded to the Hewsons on Australia and the Commonwealth. He also turned slightly towards Dr Natouche though it was impossible to see, so dark were his spectacles, whether he really looked at him.

“Well, now,” Miss Hewson said, “I just don’t get this Commonwealth. It’s the British Commonwealth but you’re not a Britisher and you got the British Queen but you don’t go around saying you’re a monarchy. I guess the distinctions are too refined for my crass American appreciation. What do you say, dear?” she asked Mr Hewson.

“Pardon me, dear?”

Miss Hewson articulated carefully into her brother’s hearing-aid and he began to look honest-to-God and dryly humorous. Miss Rickerby-Carrick broke into the conversation with confused cries of regret for the loss of Empire and of admiration for the Monarchy. “I know one’s not meant to talk like this,” she said with conspiratorial glances at Troy, Mr Pollock and Mr Bard. “But sometimes one can’t help it. I mean I’m
absolutely all
for freedom and civil rights and integ—” she broke of with an air of someone whose conversation has bolted with her, turned very red and madly leant towards Dr Natouche.

“Do forgive me,” she gabbled. “I mean, of course, I don’t know. I mean, am I right in supposing—?”

Dr Natouche folded his hands, waited a moment and then said: “Are you wondering if I am a British subject? I am. As you see, I belong to a minority group. I practise in Liverpool.” His voice was superbly tranquil and his manner entirely withdrawn.

The silence that followed his little speech was broken by the Skipper who came crabwise down the companionway.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “I hope you are comfortably settled. We’ll be on our way in a few minutes. You will find a certain amount of information in the brochures supplied. We don’t go in for mikes and loudspeakers in the
Zodiac
but I’m very much at your service to answer questions if I can. The weather forecast is good although at this time of year we sometimes get the Creeper, which is a local name for River fog. It usually comes up at night and can be heavy. During the afternoon we follow the upper reaches of The River through low-lying country to Ramsdyke Lock. We wind about and about quite a lot which some people find confusing. You may have noticed, by the way, that in these parts we don’t talk about The River by name. To the locals it’s always just The River. It was over this country that Archbishop Langton chased King John. But long before that the Romans made the Ramsdyke canal as an addition to The River itself. The waterways were busy in Roman times. We take a little while going through the lock at Ramsdyke and you might fancy a stroll up the field and a look at a hollow alongside the Dyke Way. The wapentake courts were held there in Plantagenet times. Forerunners of our Judges’ Circuits. You can’t miss the wapentake hollow. Matter of five minutes’ walk. Thank you.”

He gave a crisp little nod and returned to the upper deck. An appreciative murmur broke out among the passengers.

“Come,” Mr Bard exclaimed. “Here’s a sensible and heartening start. A handful of nice little facts and a fillip to the imagination. Splendid. Mrs Alleyn, you have finished your luncheon. Do come on deck and witness the departure.”

“I think we should all go up,” Troy said.

“Oh ra-
ther
!” cried Miss Rickerby-Carrick. “Come on, chaps!”

She blew her nose vigorously and made a dash for the companionway. There was a printed warning at the top: “Please note deeper step” but she disregarded it, plunged headlong through the half-door at the top and could be heard floundering about with startled cries on the other side. Troy overheard Mr Hewson say to Miss Hewson: “To me she seems kind of fabulous,” and Miss Hewson reply: “Maybe she’s one of the Queen’s Beasts’ and they both looked dryly humorous.

Illogically Troy felt irritated with them and exasperated by Miss Rickerby-Carrick who was clearly going to get on everybody’s nerves. Mr Pollock for instance, after contemplating her precipitate exit, muttered: “Isn’t it marvellous!” and Mr Bard, for Troy’s benefit, briefly cast up his eyes and followed the others to the upper deck. Mr Lazenby, who was still at his luncheon, waved his fork to indicate that he would follow later.

Dr Natouche rose and looked out of the saloon windows at the wharf. Troy thought: “How very tall he is.” Taller, she decided, than her husband, who was over six feet. “He’s waiting,” she thought, “for all of us to go up first,” and she found herself standing by him.

“Have you ever done this before, Dr Natouche?” she asked. “Taken a waterways cruise?”