The Players And The Game (2 page)

‘The lounge.’ Mr Darling the estate agent dipped his head a little, reverentially. The bald spot in the centre of his carefully brushed hair showed. The four of them looked at an empty room.

‘Terrific.’ Paul Vane strode towards the french window, opened it, stood gulping in air as though his life depended on it.

Mr Darling played a trump card. ‘Beyond the garden the grammar school playing fields. No prospect of building there.’ He was a smallish man of about forty, neat and precise, one of the smoothly agreeable rather than the barkingly aggressive kind of estate agent.

‘A nice room,’ Alice said without conviction. She looked towards her daughter. Jennifer shrugged.

‘It’s like any other suburban house. If that’s what you want.’

Paul did not say to his stepdaughter that Rawley was a town, not a suburb. They went on looking at the house. Alice concentrated on practical details, fitting in her furniture, carpets, curtains, clothing it with character. Paul praised the quietness of the road, and said how marvellously solid these Edwardian houses were. Mr Darling prattled on about the convenience of shops and schools (foolish, Alice thought, when Jennifer was obviously too old for school), about tradesmen who delivered. When she murmured that they would think about it, he made it clear that with a house like this, in a road as desirable as this one, they shouldn’t think too long.

In company the Vanes were, as other people said, a couple who obviously got on well. You could hardly imagine them quarrelling. It was true that they never quarrelled, but this was because when they were alone they avoided any delicate or controversial subject. That night, after they had returned to London and Jennifer had gone off, as she blankly said, to meet somebody, they talked in their Chalk Farm maisonette about the Rawley house. The conversation was up to a point typically evasive.

‘I can’t imagine why you said we’d think about it instead of settling straight away.’ Paul flung himself to the floor rather than sat on it, put his head against her legs, grinned with conscious boyishness. ‘What’s up, honey, did you hate the house?’

‘It’s an ordinary house. I suppose it could be nice.

‘You’d make it perfect. You’ve got the touch.’

‘It will take you longer to get to work. Jennifer too.’ The offices of Timbals Plastics, in which Paul was personnel director, were in Westminster. Jennifer had a secretarial job in Mayfair with some film distributors. ‘She’s made it plain enough that she doesn’t like it.’

‘She’ll fly the coop any day now, get a flat of her own.’

‘I wish I knew who the friends are she goes out to meet. Why doesn’t she bring them back here?’

‘Because the young are young and we’re middle-aged, and never the twain shall meet. Not that anyone would ever think
you
are forty-two.’ She knew that Paul wanted her to say that he looked thirty-five instead of forty, but she refused to coddle his vanity like that. Anyway, it wasn’t true any more. He had kept his figure, but his hair was thinning and his face was lined. He had been wonderfully handsome, and she had always loved handsome men. She regarded herself as a practical woman, and her liking for masculine good looks as a sentimental weakness, but it still remained. Her first husband, Anthony, had looked like Rupert Brooke. He was ten years older than she, an air force pilot whose plane had crashed in the Alps when she was eight months pregnant with Jennifer. As for Paul, he now looked what he was, a man of forty. Did you call somebody of that age handsome any more? ‘Here it’s a fairly crummy maisonette, there you’ve got green fields. So what’s against it?’

‘I don’t see why we have to live in Rawley at all.’

‘We’ve been into that.’ He got up and started to walk about. He could never be still for long. ‘Look, the chief factory’s at Rawley, half the executives live there, Bob Lowson is there–’

‘So you have to live there too?’

‘Oh my God.’ He smacked his forehead in mock despair. ‘You know Bob said he couldn’t imagine why we stayed in London, how good it would be to have us as neighbours.’

‘And what Bob Lowson says you do?’

‘It’s not like that. You’re being unfair, honey.’

She knew that she was being unfair. Bob Lowson was the managing director, and his words were meant as an act of friendship. Paul looked at her with the wounded little boy stare that had once melted her heart. Now it seemed to her an irritating affectation. She abandoned Lowson, and spoke out of this irritation.

‘I just don’t want anything to happen again.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Like Monica.’

‘That was ages ago. You’re not holding that against me.’

‘I don’t hold anything against you. I just have a feeling about Rawley. It looks a pretty ghastly place to me. And I think it’s bad luck for us.’

‘It isn’t like you to talk about luck.’

‘I tell you, Paul, if anything else happened like Monica I should leave you.’

She hardly ever said such things, partly because they broke the unspoken rule that they were not people who let their feelings show, and partly because she knew the extravagance of Paul’s reactions, but still she was not prepared for him to go down on his knees and weep, and swear that if she left him he would kill himself. Mixed up with this there were promises, and some stuff she did not understand about people gunning for him in the office. After ten minutes of this she agreed that tomorrow he would pay a deposit on Bay Trees, which was the name of the house.

Afterwards, lying awake in her separate bed, she said the address to herself silently: Bay Trees, Kingsnorton Avenue, Rawley. It occurred to her that he had got what he wanted, and she wondered why she had opposed going to Rawley so strongly. It was sensible to keep in with the managing director, and what did it matter where you lived, after all? It was two months since they had tried unsuccessfully to make love, and between waking and sleeping she imagined a man of twenty-five in bed with her, dark, eager, intense. He whispered words that she strained to hear, and she murmured something back to him. Paul moved in his sleep, and groaned.

Bob Lowson pressed a button, set in what looked like a decorative wall panel. The panel moved upwards and the drinks tray inside came out. He watched the operation with pleasure, poured two large whiskies, gave one to Valerie, and said, ‘What do you mean, something funny?’

‘Don’t ask me, I don’t know. Just there’s something funny about him, that’s all.’

‘Paul gets on with people. I mean, it’s his job. So why don’t you want him to live here? It’s convenient in every way, he ought to be near the Rawley operation.’

‘All right.’

‘Anyway, how could I stop him?’

You didn’t have to encourage him.’

‘It’s settled now, they’ve paid a deposit.’

They were two big handsome people. She was only three or four inches below his six foot one. Lowson, a northern boy who had come south and made good like many others, somehow resembled a pig in spite of his fine straight nose and the elegant wings of greying hair that he had blow-waved every month. Valerie, ten years his junior, was a pink rose with blonde hair and an hour-glass figure. About her flourishing opulent attraction there was something piglike too.

‘We ought to have them to dinner, introduce them to some people.’

‘You think they’ll fit in?’ She shook her head when he laughed. ‘It’s not a joke. I’ll bet she’s got some funny ideas. I shouldn’t be surprised if she was a vegetarian.’ Valerie was rarely happier than when cutting into a steak. ‘There’s something funny about them both.’

He made a characteristic sound, a blend of mannish laughter and piggish snort. ‘Just ask them to dinner in the next couple of weeks, they’ll be all right. Where’s Sal?’

‘Tennis club.’

His nod said that the tennis club was a good place to be. Bob Lowson was the chairman. He was also president of Rawley Cricket Club, and a vice-president of the amateur dramatic society and of an ex-Servicemen’s group. He liked to be involved in local activities.

Like her father and mother Sally Lowson was big, without being inelegant. Partnering the club secretary Peter Ponsonby against Ray Gordon and Louise Allbright, she loped about the court hitting baseline forehands, reaching what looked like winners and returning them, getting up athletically to smash. When they had won the set six-four Peter embraced her. ‘You were wonderful. I think that calls for a long cooling drink all round.’ In the bar he said, ‘Ray wasn’t pleased, not pleased at all. It won’t do that young man any harm to be taken down a peg.’ In the same breath and without any change of tone he went on, ‘Ray, what are you having? I was just saying to Sally that she played a wonderful game.’

Ray Gordon was in his mid-twenties and had played for the county. He was a small nutty man, a journalist on the local paper. He said amiably enough that Sally’s shots had been going in. When Louise Allbright came out of the dressing-room Ray took her by the arm, and said that he would take a rain check on that drink if Peter didn’t mind. Sally dropped one eyelid in a wink. Then Ray and Louise went out together, and the zoom of his Triumph Spitfire could be heard.

‘Somebody is getting too big for his boots.’ Peter had the round face of a cherub, scored by two lines of disappointment from nose to chin. He was a bachelor in his forties, and was thought by some members to be queer. His conversation was either amusing or boringly gossipy, according to your taste. ‘And I’ve heard of cradle-snatching, but really. She can’t be much more than eighteen. And I thought you and Ray–’

‘You shouldn’t think so hard, Peter dear, it’s bad for you.’ Sally went off to the changing-room. Standing under the shower, feeling the water hot and hotter and then deliciously cold, she thought that she was pretty bored with the tennis club and with the whole Rawley scene. She was bored with tinpot little journalists like Ray Gordon. Making love in the back of a car had ceased to be exciting, and she was too big a girl to find it comfortable. Louise, now, would be a much better fit. She puffed powder at her body and said aloud, ‘I wonder if he’s laid her yet.’ Then she went home and there, passionately hungry, devoured a leg of chicken from the refrigerator.

In early May the Vanes were invited to dinner by the Lowsons. They had not yet completed the purchase of Bay Trees. A query raised by Paul’s solicitor had remained unanswered for a couple of weeks. Then it had been cleared up, and everything seemed so straightforward that Paul and Alice had moved some of their furniture out of store into the empty house. In buying and selling a house, however, nothing is finally settled until the contract has been signed by both parties, and now the solicitors for the seller, a man named Makepeace, had told Paul through Mr Darling that they had received a higher offer.

On the way to the Lowsons’, Paul and Alice called on the estate agent. His office was in the old part of the town, in an eighteenth-century house with an elegant bow window. Paul had worked himself up into a state of anger that was part-synthetic and part-real.

‘I’m bound to say that to do what your client has done, accept an offer, let us pay a deposit, and then look for a higher offer behind our backs, seems to me outrageous. Gazumping, that’s the name for it.’

Mr Darling, head bowed and tonsure showing, heard this assault with composure. ‘I should go farther.’ His voice was low but audible. ‘I should say it shows bad faith. Gazumping I am not prepared to tolerate.’

‘We took it that he was honest, and we’ve moved some stuff in already. If the whole deal’s off I shall expect compensation.’ Paul paused. ‘What’s that you said?’

‘I put this to Mr Makepeace, and said that I could no longer act on his behalf if he considered another offer after accepting yours.’

‘That’s all very well but–’ Paul paused again, considering the small firm jaw that faced him across the table.

‘I am happy to say I have been able to get Mr Makepeace to agree. He did have a higher offer – not made through me, I can assure you – and he was tempted. I don’t think he quite understood the ethics of the situation. I told him that he was bound in honour not to consider any other offer.’

‘And?’ It was almost the first word Alice had spoken at the interview.

‘And he has turned down the other offer.’ He pressed a buzzer. A flabby-looking woman with mouse-coloured hair came in. ‘Miss Brown, the letter to Mr Makepeace’s solicitors, please. And the carbon of my acknowledgement.’

Miss Brown brought them in. The solicitors’ letter confirmed that they were going ahead and would be ready to exchange contracts within a couple of days.

‘You’ll no doubt be hearing from your own solicitors. Our postal services are not what they used to be.’ He smiled shyly at this, then grew serious. ‘You’ll have a beautiful home, Mrs Vane. In the best part of Rawley.’

‘The best part of Rawley,’ Alice repeated as they got out of the car and she looked at the red-brick Edwardian houses around them, each with its separate garage and well-kept front and back gardens. They went round the empty house again, looking for cracks in ceilings, sniffing in the damp cellar. ‘Are you having second thoughts? It’s not too late.’

‘No second thoughts. I told you, it’s going to be terrific.’

‘I hope I can take life in the best part of Rawley, that’s all.’

‘You know the finest cure for crime? Health.’ Sir Felton Dicksee looked challengingly around the table. He was Chief Constable of the county, and nobody cared to contradict him. The men were still in the dining-room after dinner, on their second glass of port.

‘You mean the criminal type is mentally abnormal?’ Dick Service, keen and doggish, was the Timbals Plastics psychiatrist.

‘Not mental. Let you trick cyclist chaps get going and you tell us we’re all abnormal, more or less.’ Sir Felton laughed heartily. ‘May be right for all I know, but it’s not what I’m talking about. Talking about health, keeping fit. No need to spend too much time on it. Ten minutes a day with the Dicksee Diaphragm exercises will keep you in trim.’ He slapped his solar plexus which reverberated like a drum, then got out of his chair, touched his toes and kicked up each leg high as a ballet dancer.

‘Splendid,’ Dick Service said. ‘But do you mean that if all crooks did this they’d become honest citizens?’

Sir Felton snorted. He was a small red peppery man with a thick moustache. ‘Course not. I’m not a crank. What causes crime? Bad housing, wrong food, environment generally, right?’

‘It certainly has a lot to do with it,’ Dick Service agreed diplomatically.

‘Right. Bring up people in healthy conditions, give ’em light, air, make ’em take exercise whether they want to or not, and you’d cut the crime rate by a quarter in ten years.’

‘What about heredity?’ Paul Vane asked. Sir Felton made a derisive noise. ‘And then what about the exceptional criminal?’

‘Never met one. Have you?’ The Chief Constable drained his glass, glared across the table. ‘They don’t exist. Believe me, I know.’

‘Just people who don’t do the Dicksee Diaphragm exercises.’ The words came out with an ironic effect that was not intended. There was silence. Then Bob Lowson smoothly led the conversation to golf handicaps, and went on to suggest that Paul should think about joining Rawley Golf Club. When he admitted that he did not play there was again a moment of silence.

In the drawing-room the ladies talked about the latest films, and in particular about
Little Woman, Big Man,
which had been showing at the Odeon. Too much sex, Lady Dicksee said decisively, why couldn’t they realise that people went to the cinema for entertainment?

In her breathless apologetic voice Penelope Service disagreed. ‘I mean it was all rather, didn’t you think, sweet? Especially this girl, you know, the one who was almost, well, raped on board the boat.’

‘Karen ValIance,’ Valerie contributed helpfully.

‘I thought Karen Vallance was the one in the dress shop.’

‘That was Marianne Musgrave.’

‘No, Marianne Musgrave was the one thumbing a lift, the one who said, “I’m Satan’s daughter”.’

They appealed to Alice, but she had not seen the film. She did little better when the talk turned to education, and she said she thought University was not important for most girls and that she was quite pleased Jennifer was in a job. It turned out that Sally Lowson had just come down after taking a second – but a very good second – in social science, and was now a managerial trainee at Timbals, and that the Dicksees’ son and daughter had both got splendid jobs for which a University degree was an essential qualification. When the conversation moved to gardens Alice was silent. They had had no garden in Chalk Farm. She stayed silent when they went on to the running of a jumble sale for Oxfam, for which Valerie Lowson was acting secretary.

When they had all gone Valerie and Bob cleared up. The help came in the morning, so that there was really no need to do this, but the operation of the kitchen machinery delighted them both. The outsize dishwasher got to work on plates and saucepans, the waste destructor crunched up rubbish, unused things were hung on hooks.

‘You see what I mean,’ Valerie said. ‘What’s her name, Alice, was really a dead loss. The thing is she doesn’t
try
to show any interest.’

‘Give them a chance, they’ll settle down.’

‘I bet he was no better.’

‘He put up a black with old Felton. Still, Felton can be a bore.’

‘I just don’t see why you want them here. Yes, all right, I know it’s convenient, but I tell you, Bob, you’ll be sorry.’

When she had that high colour Val always seemed to him desirable. He put aside his dish cloth, placed both arms round her, kissed her ear.

‘Robert Lowson. At your age.’

‘That’s not so old. Let’s go upstairs and play games.’

‘Where’s Sally?’

‘Out. Stop worrying. She’s a big girl now.’

Both of them would have been surprised by the idea that this was literally true. They simply considered most other people as under normal size.

The Services lived near to Bay Trees, in a very similar road. They got back to find Anne Marie, the au pair, dancing frantically up and down in an attempt to stop their three-year-old son John from screaming. He had stuffed a Teddy bear into his mouth until he choked, and had been screaming ever since. It turned out that he was soaking wet. He stopped screaming when Penelope caught hold of him, and fell asleep the instant she put him to bed.

Penelope was inclined to blame Anne Marie, saying that she ought to have been there when John was stuffing the Teddy bear into his mouth. Anne Marie wept. Later Penelope said to Dick that the girl was slovenly and thought of nothing but getting up to London, and that they really should get rid of her. Dick stayed silent. He knew that Penelope would have forgotten the idea by the next morning. Anne Marie in tears had looked very pretty and rather exciting.

‘Do you know what we talked about?’ Alice asked as they got on to the main road. ‘Bedding plants and natural manure and who was in what at the local cinema. God, that Valerie’s a bore.’

‘And what do you usually talk about?’

‘Something a bit more intelligent. I don’t usually meet people like that.’

He glanced at her for a moment, then back to the road. ‘There are wheels within wheels. Hartford is trying to get me out.’

She repeated the words incredulously. ‘You’re imagining it.’

‘He’s got some girl in as my assistant. A Behavioural Scientist.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Don’t ask me. But she’s Hartford’s importation. I shouldn’t be surprised if she reports back to him. So don’t talk too much about Valerie Lowson being a bore. Bob likes me.’

‘I suppose it’s a reason for coming here. Keeping in with the boss.’ They were on a motorway. The stretch in front of them looked endless. ‘But I can feel trouble ahead. I really can.’

He took a hand off the wheel and put it on her knee, totally without sexual implication. In what she thought of as his actor’s voice he said, ‘No trouble. I swear it.’

Brian Hartford lay on the floor, looked through his gun sight and fired four shots. Each pellet struck a foot soldier. He completed the move by wheeling his infantry so that they encircled Blaney’s depleted right flank. ‘Got you,’ he said in the eager biting tone that made his words often sound like a command or an insult. He was a small sandy man with greenish eyes and almost invisible eyebrows.

Blaney considered the situation. Soldiers, red and blue, horse and foot, covered the plastic-tiled floor. There was a village street with a church in it, a wood made from plastic trees, a blue plastic river with a bridge which Blaney’s retreating troops had failed to reach in time to blow it up. He nodded. ‘Trouble is, your gunners have got twenty-twenty vision.’ Blaney wore thick pebbled glasses.

The remark had a flavour of frivolity which Hartford disliked. It implied that good sight was more important than good generalship. ‘Not at all. You should have drawn back your left sooner to cover the bridge. You simply didn’t realise its importance.’ He relented and offered whisky. After all, he had won. They went into the living-room. Hartford talked exclusively about the game they had just finished, and what set-up they should try next week. Blaney tried to show enthusiasm. He had begun to play the War Game because it sounded like fun, but continued only because he was the marketing manager of Timbals, and Hartford was deputy managing director. He hoped for some profit from the association, but so far its possible nature was not apparent.

When Blaney had gone Hartford went back into the big room and put the soldiers, guns and landscape away carefully in boxes. He lived alone on the top floor of a large Victorian house in Maida Vale which had been turned into service apartments. He looked out for a few moments into the quiet street, and then went to bed. His bedroom was composed of rectangles that confronted each other angularly, the bed, the Danish cupboard and dressing-table, a high-backed chair. He carefully hung up jacket and trousers, put shirt and briefs into a laundry bin and shoes on trees, looked with pleasure at the Mondrian lithographs on the walls, and got into bed.