Au Reservoir Read online

  ‘Your charm must have softened him up, Lucia,’ Olga suggested smilingly. ‘Jack Lawson can be a bit of a curmudgeon usually.’

  ‘I think he’s an old style communist essentially,’ Webster cut in. ‘I remember him making a real hellfire speech before the war about the exploitation of native labour – in Malaya, I believe.’

  Lucia experienced a momentary pang of concern and decided that a change of subject would be in order.

  ‘I was expounding my plans for a more efficient railway network,’ she explained, as the waiters served the fish. ‘I am glad to say that the Secretary of State seemed very impressed by my arguments for a daily Tilling Express. Perhaps I will follow up with a letter.’

  She nodded thoughtfully and began to ease her turbot off the bone. Brook flashed a somewhat desperate glance to Olga, which Georgie spotted.

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ he cut in, changing the subject himself, ‘is why Mr Lawson had to dash off to vote in the House. Why, it’s nearly ten o’clock. Surely Parliament doesn’t sit at night, does it?’

  ‘Of course it does, Georgie,’ Lucia said severely. ‘I have always assumed that it’s so that all the Members of Parliament can do their real jobs during the day.’

  There was a sudden silence, which Georgie attempted to fill.

  ‘Why, Lucia!’ he exclaimed. ‘How very naughty you are – but you must remember that not everyone is used to your brilliant bon mots.’

  ‘Mots justes, perhaps?’ Webster mused, glancing mischievously at Brook.

  ‘You are all being very naughty,’ Olga said with mock-severity. ‘Now let’s change the subject and stop embarrassing poor Norman.’

  The next morning Lucia met Irene Coles, who was travelling up to London to see an exhibition of very progressive paintings by one of her fellow Royal Academicians. Irene, needless to say, was ecstatic at the prospect of being alone with her beloved Lucia for a few hours, while Olga and Georgie used the opportunity to take morning coffee at the Ritz, a favourite launching pad for Georgie’s forays into the dizzy world of Jermyn Street.

  He was already looking forward to his planned visits. Since his brief acquaintance with King Zog of Albania, Georgie had always had his cigarettes made by hand in St James’s to his own special blend, which consisted mostly of Turkish tobacco. He was running low and wanted to order some more. King Zog, now sadly king no longer, was living in exile in Egypt, according to his occasional letters, and had expressed the hope that his gifts of rather more exotic smoking material might shortly resume.

  An appointment to review the progress of Georgie’s recently ordered boots would follow, then a visit to his tailor, who had done wonders in sourcing some Prince of Wales check and who had hinted discreetly that vulgar considerations, such as ration cards and clothing vouchers, were hardly something with which gentlemen about town could reasonably be expected to concern themselves.

  Finally, a short walk to Old Bond Street would take him to Taylor’s, where he would spend a pleasant twenty minutes sniffing fragrances while they mixed him a bottle of cologne to take home and put in his atomiseur. Again, he had been heavily influenced by King Zog in such matters, and normally tended towards something citrusy on a base of musk and sandalwood. Lucia had originally taken to wrinkling her nose ostentatiously whenever he trailed clouds of perfume in fine style around Mallards, but he had persisted and she had finally given up on the issue after only a couple of years.

  ‘Well, that was a narrow squeak last night,’ Olga was saying.

  ‘Yes, wasn’t it?’ Georgie responded. ‘Thank goodness the politicians had left. Do you think it did any harm?’

  ‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so,’ she replied, ‘particularly after you passed it off so cleverly. Hopefully everyone will just think it was a particularly biting witticism.’

  ‘Yes,’ said he thoughtfully. ‘Of course, the real irony is that it was, if only she had meant it to be one.’

  They both laughed, though Georgie had to stop almost at once as his hand started to shake, dropping macaroon crumbs on his trousers, which would never do. He brushed at them carefully, but to his horror one of them smudged slightly and he said ‘Tarsome’ really rather sharply.

  ‘It might be an idea for you to get her back to Tilling as soon as possible, though,’ she continued. ‘Particularly as I want to see Noël tomorrow and it would be very difficult to do that if she was still in town. Either I’d have to take her with me, which would be a disaster – not least because Noël would rightly think I’d set up an ambush – or attempt to hide where I was going and who I was seeing.’

  ‘Yes, I see,’ Georgie concurred, ‘and of course if she found out somehow, such as seeing another wretched photo in the newspapers or something, she’d go all sniffy and not talk to anyone.’

  ‘Why are people so difficult?’ Olga enquired of nobody in particular. ‘The world would be so uncomplicated if only it had no people in it.’

  ‘There’s a quote there somewhere, isn’t there?’ he asked absently. ‘The Tempest or something, I think.’

  Olga made no reply but lit a cigarette instead.

  ‘But just think,’ Georgie pointed out. ‘If there were no people, then there would be nobody to listen to you singing. Think how much pleasure they would all miss out on.’

  ‘You are an angel,’ she said warmly and, reaching across impetuously, squeezed his arm. He flushed and mumbled something.

  Georgie arrived back at the Ritz encumbered with various expensively packaged items, all of which were whisked away solicitously with a little bow by a flunkey, beckoned hither with a barely perceptible raising of one eyebrow by the maitre d’hôtel. As he walked towards the restaurant he glanced in the silvered mirror which dominated the entrance hall, noticed that neither of his cufflinks was visible and surreptitiously tugged at each shirt sleeve in turn, thus restoring his sartorial perfection.

  He heard Olga’s loud laugh as he entered the restaurant and saw that she was already seated with Lucia and Quaint Irene. Lucia was trying to wince, and at the same time to convey that she was attempting not to. Despite ample practice over the years, the effect was still not entirely convincing.

  ‘Caro mio,’ she greeted him graciously, ‘have you had a pleasant morning? All your errands duly run, I trust?’

  ‘Oh yes, yes thank you,’ he gushed as he sat down. ‘Well, all except my new boots anyway, and they should be ready tomorrow. I can pick them up at the same time as my cigarettes.’

  ‘Georgie-Porgie, you old rogue,’ Irene cried, having been occupied until now in draining her cocktail. ‘What have you been up to, then? Kissing the girls and making them cry, I’ll be bound. Better keep an eye out for press photographers, eh?’

  ‘Oh, really,’ he protested weakly, feeling, and not for the first time, that Irene should not be allowed out in polite society. Glancing around at neighbouring tables, however, he noticed that, far from looking scandalised, people were smiling indulgently, even as Olga went off into another great hoot of laughter. Clearly, she had been recognised.

  ‘Tell me about the paintings,’ he proffered as he took up the menu.

  ‘Vigorous!’ Lucia pronounced firmly. ‘Such colour, Georgie, such strength of purpose! If only you could have seen them.’

  Since Lucia’s views on abstract art were well known to Georgie, he glanced at her in some surprise.

  ‘Angel!’ Irene commented delightedly. ‘I knew you’d like them. How very like you!’

  Georgie felt himself dangerously close to harrumphing in Major Mapp-Flint fashion, suppressed the temptation and decided to have the potted shrimps followed by duck à l’orange.

  ‘Who was the artist?’ Olga enquired.

  ‘Oh, old Vic Pasmore,’ Irene replied. Then, looking around the table and seeing that this did not convey as much to the others as she had hoped, ‘You remember, he was put in prison during the war for being a conscientious objector. You must have read about it.’

  They all made polite noises.<
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  ‘He used to do a lot of daubs of the Thames and boring old stuff like that,’ she went on, ‘but Ben Nicholson has got him doing abstracts now, and jolly good they are too.’

  Georgie, who rather liked paintings of the Thames, took up the wine list and considered the rival attractions of a Montrachet and a Sancerre. Since that dreadful little man had finally gone too far and invaded Poland, hock seemed so unpatriotic. Unsurprisingly, he chose the Montrachet, for Sauvignon Blanc at lunchtime tended to give him indigestion in the afternoon, while Chardonnay merely made him naughtily spendthrift in shirt-makers.

  As he pointed at the wine the sommelier nodded approvingly in that manner reserved for showing approbation for a discerning gentleman who has just chosen the most expensive wine on the list.

  ‘What are your plans for the afternoon, Lucia?’ he asked idly.

  ‘Alas,’ she responded with a heavy sigh, ‘I shall visit my stockbrokers in the City, but after that I fear I must return to Tilling.’

  ‘Oh no, surely not!’ they all cried in unison.

  She waved a gentle hand in front of her face, smiling sweetly at their natural dismay.

  ‘Indeed, it is so,’ she confirmed. ‘You may have forgotten that I am Chairman of the Women in Tilling’s Care Homes committee, and it meets tomorrow morning.’

  WITCH had been founded by Elizabeth Mapp-Flint during the war to provide comforts for wounded soldiers at convalescent homes in the area. Noting the unfortunate acronym which its name produced, Irene had promptly dubbed it ‘Mapp’s coven’. In circumstances that remained obscure, Mapp had resigned from the movement after some pots of her marrow jam were returned by one of the care homes in question as inedible, under cover of a note which did less than justice to the donor’s charitable instincts. Irene, who was then on the committee herself, had suggested responding to explain that the jam was widely known to be unfit for human consumption but had actually been intended for use as a wound dressing. It was believed by those who knew about such things that the suggestion had immediately preceded Mrs Mapp-Flint’s resignation.

  ‘Is that still going?’ Olga asked in puzzlement. ‘After all, the war’s been over for some time now.’

  ‘It was felt,’ Lucia explained majestically, ‘that it may continue to fulfil a useful purpose in peacetime, rather like the United Nations.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Olga, showing a proper mixture of respect for the committee’s potential for furthering the causes of world peace and universal goodwill, and abashment at the temerity of her implied suggestion that it might now usefully be disbanded.

  ‘And anyway,’ Lucia continued in rather more prosaic vein, ‘I have someone coming to lunch tomorrow who is going to tell me all about duplicate bridge.

  ‘I was rather hoping, Georgie,’ she added a little sharply, ‘that you might be there too. After all, it was your idea.’

  ‘I’m not sure it was actually,’ he muttered rebelliously as he tasted the Montrachet.

  Olga kicked him under the table.

  ‘But of course I will be there,’ he concurred, feeling the huge finish swirl delightfully around his palate.

  Lucia nodded magisterially, as though acknowledging a whispered communication from a palace aide that yet another war had broken out in the Balkans.

  ‘Only a shame,’ she said suddenly, ‘that I have been unable to see Mr Coward during my time in town.’

  Irene glanced up from her plate and said ‘Poor angel’, at the same time darting a worried glance at Olga.

  ‘Yes, so wretched that he’s been so busy,’ Olga proffered. ‘I think the poor man is appearing in one play, rehearsing another, and writing yet another.’

  ‘Busy indeed,’ Lucia agreed rather distantly. ‘He must be. Why, I sent him a letter by hand yesterday, and followed it up with a telegram this morning. I tried to get tickets for his play tonight so I could visit him in his dressing room afterwards, but sadly it is sold out. Most vexing.’

  Georgie and Olga looked at each other in consternation.

  ‘I did so want to meet him.’ Lucia bit her lip, hoping that she could correct her innocent slip before anyone noticed, ‘See him, I mean.’

  ‘He’s such a difficult man to see,’ Olga explained. ‘He rarely rises before midday, spends an hour or so in the bath, has lunch, spends all afternoon writing and then dashes into the theatre just in time for the ten minute bell.’

  Lucia made one of her little noises which might have meant anything but which usually signalled disapproval.

  ‘Why,’ Olga continued, seeing that she needed to warm to her task, ‘I ran into the Queen at a Red Cross dinner a little while ago and even she hasn’t been able to get to see him.’

  ‘Are they friends?’ Georgie asked dubiously.

  ‘Oh, they’re great chums,’ she assured him. ‘They moved in the same circles before the abdication, when she was just the smiling duchess rather than the Queen. She loves the theatre, you know. And she says he’s invented a new cocktail for her, though nobody is quite sure what it is.’

  ‘Well,’ observed Lucia, relenting somewhat, ‘if even Her Majesty cannot get to see him that does put a rather different complexion on things. Although,’ she mused, ‘it is of course unfortunate that Her Majesty should have been unable to accept one of my invitations to attend civic functions in Tilling.’

  ‘You wrote to the Queen?’ Georgie asked, feeling rather faint.

  ‘Many times,’ Lucia said airily. ‘Before the war. Though she never replied.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Olga commented rather helplessly. ‘I wonder why not.’

  ‘I think she was instructed not to,’ opined Lucia.

  ‘Who by?’ Georgie asked, and then kicked himself as he realised he should have said, ‘By whom?’

  ‘That nasty Mr Baldwin of course.’

  ‘Poor angel,’ Irene commented again. ‘I’ll bet he was being beastly because of your ideas about a special train for Tilling.’

  Lucia pondered.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she conceded. ‘Though it may also have had something to do with me being nominated as Warden of the Cinque Ports.’

  This time Georgie got it right.

  ‘I never knew you’d been nominated for that,’ he said. ‘Why, it would be an enormous honour; it’s still one of the most important royal offices in the country. Nominated by whom?’

  She looked at him in surprise.

  ‘By myself, of course, silly. Though I did mention that I was sure the idea would have the support of the town council, as well as my Lord Bishop.’

  Since at least two-thirds of her audience had temporarily been deprived of the power of speech, she pressed on.

  ‘Such a fine idea, don’t you think, for the office actually to be held by someone local, someone on the spot? Much better surely than some old fuddy-duddy away in London who never comes near the south coast. That was the gist of my suggestion to Mr Baldwin, anyway.’

  She looked at her watch and sighed.

  ‘I think I must slip away,’ she said. ‘It may take simply ages to get over to the City in the middle of the day. Georgie, dear, can I leave the bill to you?’

  As Georgie rose, she air-kissed Olga and Irene and swept magnificently from the room, a vision of loveliness in a pre-war Old Imari concoction.

  Georgie sat down again, and nodded his agreement to Irene’s rather hopeful suggestion of a brandy and benedictine. Somehow, he felt he needed it.

  ‘Well,’ he said finally, to break a silence which was threatening to become awkward, ‘that was …’

  Having started without properly thinking through what he wanted to say, he found himself floundering.

  ‘Insightful?’ Olga suggested.

  ‘Yes, if you like.’

  There was another silence, which was broken by Irene, revived by the tinkling sound of the approaching liqueur trolley.

  ‘Who is the Warden of the Cinque Ports, anyway?’ she demanded.

  ‘I rather think it’s the Queen,’ said Olg
a quietly.

  Chapter 12

  Noël Coward screwed his first cigarette of the day into an exquisite tortoiseshell cigarette holder (French, second empire) with an air of elaborate ennui, and tied around himself a very grand silk dressing gown (Macau, pre-war), which featured on the back a large gold dragon against a vivid blue background. He gazed into his large crested mirror (Venetian, eighteenth century), and sighed with the quietly desperate air of a man who is middle-aged but has yet to come fully to terms with the fact.

  Confident that his valet would have heard him up and about and would therefore have preparations for breakfast well advanced, he opened the door and proceeded towards the drawing room. He walked at a steady, determined pace but with a gait which, were one in search of an apt though slightly esoteric epithet, might be described as somewhat epicene.

  He entered the room and sat down at the table, drawing the smell of freshly made coffee eagerly into his lungs to mix with his Virginia and Turkish blend from Morland’s of Grosvenor Street. As he reflected on the perfect juxtaposition of fine coffee and fine tobacco, he became aware that he was not alone.

  ‘Hello, Noël,’ said Olga, looking up from a copy of Variety.

  She was slumped backwards on his leather chesterfield (British, Edwardian), with her feet perched in most unladylike fashion on his hammered metal coffee table (Moroccan, age indeterminate), which had been sold to him by an awfully nice boy in the Casbah (Moroccan, age indeterminate) as part of a larger series of transactions which need form no part of this narrative.

  He eyed her with cold disfavour.

  ‘I would have thought, my dear,’ he commented, eschewing any pretence of a greeting, ‘that an Englishman’s drawing room would be sacrosanct at breakfast time.’

  ‘It’s one o’clock in the afternoon,’ she pointed out, not unreasonably.

  ‘Which is when I have breakfast,’ he replied, ‘ergo, it is breakfast time. Please leave.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be such an old misery,’ Olga said. ‘Anyway, Denny let me in.’

  ‘Is this true, Denny?’ Coward asked as his valet came into the room bearing bacon and eggs.