Au Reservoir Read online

  ‘Lucia, of course,’ Irene enthused. ‘Isn’t it just like her?’

  Mapp had known this answer was coming, of course, but she pinched her nose yet harder in involuntary rage. She took a deep breath through her mouth and then released her fingers, leaving a bright red mark on each side of her nose.

  ‘Lady Bountiful, of course,’ she said, her rage getting the better of her. ‘How generous she is, and how grateful we all are.’

  She sketched a deep curtsey towards Mallards, as Irene and Diva looked at each other uneasily. At times like this, Elizabeth Mapp-Flint was not shown at her best.

  ‘Well,’ she went on, affecting great unconcern. ‘I find that I can enjoy playing bridge quite well enough without the lure of cash prizes, so I shall be content to carry on playing at tea time with a few chosen friends. That’s the way we have always done things in Tilling and that’s the way things will carry on being done, despite the efforts of parvenus to introduce nasty new-fangled ideas. Bridge tournament indeed! Why, I’m only surprised that she hasn’t suggested a bridge club.’

  ‘She has,’ Irene said promptly.

  ‘A bridge club?’ Mapp said disbelievingly. ‘That’s the first I’ve heard of it.’

  ‘Should read Twemlow’s window a bit more thoroughly, Mapp,’ that hateful Irene hooted. ‘Application list open in the public library.’

  ‘Nobody will join,’ Mapp said at once. ‘It’ll be just like that time she first stood for the town council and nobody voted for her. She’ll just make herself look ridiculous.’

  ‘Nobody voted for you either,’ interjected Irene unhelpfully.

  ‘That is neither here nor there,’ Mapp swept on. ‘I say nobody will sign up and it will be just her and Georgie, and perhaps a few local tradesmen who don’t want to lose her business. Well, let’s see how she likes playing bridge with butchers and greengrocers while we all carry on as normal without her!’

  She found this prospect greatly comforting, and her rage began to dissipate.

  ‘Well, we’ve just been to sign up, actually,’ Diva said awkwardly. ‘I mean, it all seems so much fun.’

  ‘So has most of the town from the look of things,’ Irene added, rubbing salt into the wound. ‘I saw the Wyses and the Bartletts, for a start.’

  ‘But how can you all be so foolish?’ Mapp cried, her rage rising again, and to new levels. ‘Can’t you see what she’s doing? This is just one more thing she can control!’

  ‘Well, it would be churlish not to elect her as the first President, or Chairman, or whatever, wouldn’t it?’ Diva asked. ‘After all it was her idea, and she is paying for everything.’

  ‘That woman,’ hissed Mapp, suddenly icy calm, ‘will not rest until she controls the entire world, you mark my words.’

  ‘You should have kept control of that coven of yours, Mapp,’ horrid Irene said, as she stuck her hands in her pockets and sauntered off. ‘I thought being chief witch really suited you.’

  Diva looked embarrassed, as well she might, for she had been present as a committee member on that fateful day, and had voted to install Lucia as Mapp’s successor. This had resulted in a curt note announcing a permanent rupture of the ‘I think further correspondence between us would be superfluous’ variety which, in the best Tilling tradition of permanent ruptures, had lasted for at least three days.

  As the three of them moved on along the High Street with their shopping baskets, they chanced upon Lucia and Georgie coming in the opposite direction.

  ‘Elizabetha mia!’ Lucia cried, with every appearance of enthusiasm, while Georgie and the Major raised their hats.

  ‘Dear worship,’ Elizabeth replied, ‘so you are come amongst us once more. What joy!’

  ‘I was not aware that I had been away, Elizabeth,’ Lucia said, with a quizzical glance at Diva as though she too might have noticed stray symptoms of senility in Elizabeth Mapp-Flint’s recent behaviour.

  ‘Perhaps not, dear one,’ Mapp responded, ‘but we haven’t seen each other for positively ages, n’est ce pas? Perhaps it’s just my bad fortune not to have been present at the same time as you go shopping.’

  ‘Quite possibly, dear,’ Lucia agreed.

  ‘Well, we have been busy,’ Georgie added, thinking that Lucia’s last remark, though perfectly apt, might bear a little softening.

  ‘So I hear,’ came Mapp’s rejoinder. ‘Fêtes, and coaches, and bridge tournaments, and opera houses – why, I really don’t know how you find the time, Lucia. You leave the rest of us feeling quite dizzy trying to keep up with you.’

  It was a shame that Elizabeth Mapp-Flint had never learned how properly to deploy irony as a verbal tool, since this omission tended to rob her conversation of its intended wit and suggest instead a naked venom of a type often employed by middle-aged ladies of the terminally dissatisfied persuasion.

  ‘Talking of coaches, Elizabeth …’ the Major interjected.

  ‘Ah yes,’ Mapp said heavily, ‘Benjy is reminding me to ask if we may take advantage of your kind offer of a ride in your coach on Saturday.’

  The other three looked at each other, since the request had been uttered in a tone of barely concealed anger for which there appeared to be no reasonable cause.

  ‘Delighted!’ Lucia answered. ‘Why I will go back to Mallards straightaway and put your names on the list. How thoughtful of you to ask, Elizabeth. We have had a very gratifying response already and it would have been dreadful to have had to leave such good friends disappointed. Why, if things go on like this, we might have to hire a second coach as well.’

  This information did not seem to improve Mapp’s mood.

  ‘Talking of the bridge tournament,’ Diva said brightly, ‘I’m going to enter with Irene. How exciting! So looking forward to it.’

  ‘Excellent, Diva,’ Lucia said approvingly, ‘but you will need to be four players, not two.’

  Diva looked blank, as indeed did the Mapp-Flints.

  ‘It’s a teams tournament, you see,’ Georgie explained eagerly. ‘Instead of playing as a pair, you play as two pairs, and you score points based on your combined results.’

  Major Benjy still looked blank but across the faces of both Diva and Elizabeth flashed sudden comprehension followed by clear signs, to the experienced Tilling observer, of the equally sudden impact of a very good idea that must at all costs be hidden from one’s companions, old and dear friends though they might be.

  ‘Thank you so much for explaining that, dear Mr Georgie,’ Mapp said with the sickly smile which she was sure others found most endearing. ‘Goodness, so much innovation! But Benjy and I will of course enter. Such a noble venture requires everyone’s support, don’t you think? Come along, Benjy, let’s go to the library right now before Lucia’s list fills up so much that there isn’t even room to squeeze in our names. Au reservoir, everybody.’

  With this she seized the Major by the arm and propelled him along the High Street as quickly as her somewhat bovine gait would permit.

  Diva too gabbled an ‘Au reservoir’ and set off in pursuit.

  ‘Oi!’ she said loudly as she came up behind them. ‘I thought you said you were going to the library?’

  This was a reasonable line of enquiry, since the Mapp-Flints were heading for the Church Square, while the library lay in the opposite direction.

  ‘Sorry, dear?’ Mapp said vaguely, affecting either not to hear or not to understand.

  ‘The library,’ said Diva. ‘Wrong way.’

  ‘Just have a few things to attend to first, dear,’ Mapp replied airily, quickening her pace.

  This meant of course that Diva too had to quicken her pace, and the ensuing events caused something of a spectacle for those passers-by who witnessed it.

  In order properly to appreciate its nature, it should be explained that the pavements of Tilling are narrow. This slight drawback is dealt with in good Tilling fashion by walking in the road, but this is an exercise which must be conducted with caution, since the streets of Tilling are cobbled
, and sprained or even broken ankles not unknown.

  Both Diva Plaistow and Elizabeth Mapp-Flint had achieved that mature roundness of figure which made sharing a pavement with anyone a near impossibility. This meant that in order to overtake her friend, Diva had to step out into the road. Since Major Mapp-Flint had already done so in chivalrous fashion to allow his wife full use of the pavement, this meant that Diva had to overtake not one obstacle but two. She was thus forced to veer right out into the middle of the road.

  In fact this proved to be not quite so much a disadvantage as might at first be thought, since in the middle of the road she encountered a flat, uncobbled section which had presumably been intended for a horse to be able to pull a cart or carriage without the risk of incurring lameness on the cobbles. This largely nullified Elizabeth’s initial advantage.

  However, in the time which it had taken Diva to gain this firm going in the centre of the track, Elizabeth had made considerable progress on the rails, and so Diva had to quicken her pace considerably in order to catch her up and, if possible, pass her. As Elizabeth was not wearing blinkers, she was able to spot this manoeuvre out of the corner of her eye and put in a spurt of her own to compensate.

  Since the route from the High Street to the Church Square ran steeply uphill, Tilling was now treated to the sight of two of its better-known figures striding grimly uphill, both growing rapidly red in the face, and with their faces set in a rictus of distress as they sucked in the breath eagerly to struggle on. The Major, despite his best efforts, felt unable to match this unexpected turn of speed and soon fell back a length or so; it was clear that, in the absence of a steward’s enquiry, he would not be placed.

  Diva had, by a supreme effort of will, now drawn level with Elizabeth and between them they had attracted the attention of two delivery boys, who had abandoned their missions and were shouting encouragement, one favouring the early leader on the rails, and the other the late challenger on the outside. Attracted by the commotion, passing shoppers also turned to watch events unfold.

  Elizabeth tried to respond with a fresh acceleration but she began to feel an agonising shortness of breath, and deeply regretted the unyielding efficiency of her foundation garment. As if by divine intervention, however, the object of her quest – the Reverend Kenneth Bartlett, the best bridge player in Tilling – suddenly hove into view at the top of the hill. The sight of him drove her to persevere in a fresh effort, her elbows pumping vigorously and her breath making great hissing noises as she forcibly expelled it.

  Needless to say the Padre was also Diva’s objective, and she locked on to him like a battle cruiser tracking a pocket battleship. Their mutual target meantime came to a halt and stared open-mouthed at the scene which met his eyes. Luckily there was little time for his reaction to progress beyond simple surprise, as the prospect of two formidably endowed ladies bearing down on him with expressions of grim determination might otherwise quite understandably have been found highly distressing.

  It was at this point that a riderless horse intervened in the shape of a small blue van which, having come around Church Square, turned into the street and came face to face with Diva Plaistow charging uphill as if storming an enemy redoubt. For a moment, disaster threatened and the Padre was not alone in experiencing an involuntary sharp intake of breath.

  Fortunately the lorry was proceeding slowly, in accordance with the town council’s traffic ordinances, the driver was alert and the van’s brakes had recently been attended to. As Diva gazed in horror at the approaching radiator grille, the van slithered to a halt inches in front of her. Overcome by a mixture of shock and her exertions, she leaned forward and placed her hands on the bonnet, gasping and whooping.

  This of course left her rival a free run at the Padre. Seeing that her primacy was no longer threatened, Elizabeth slowed to a walk but her breathing refused to return to normal. She staggered the last dozen steps, but by the time she reached him was still incapable of speech. Indeed she seemed to be having trouble focusing her eyes, let alone speaking, and started to sag towards him. Reluctantly, for he was unsure whether even the wiry frame of a former amateur boxing champion was equal to such a task, he reached out his hands to support her.

  Physical intervention was luckily to prove unnecessary. By a supreme effort of will she managed to hold herself upright and stare at him. Normal speech, though, was still beyond her. Conscious that Diva might yet prove a late arrival and steal her thunder, she gazed at him with a deeply beseeching expression and made plaintive little whimpering noises.

  Diva had indeed finally crossed to the pavement after her narrow escape and was once again labouring upwards, though still a few lengths from the finishing post. In the meantime, Major Benjy, himself very red in the face, had put in an appearance at Mapp’s shoulder, saying, ‘My God, Liz-girl, are you all right?’

  The Major’s overpowering sentiment, other than natural concern for his wife’s well-being, was one of puzzlement, since he had no idea what his wife had been thinking about when she launched her reckless uphill dash. The last time that a woman had suddenly run away from him without a word had been in a cinema in Eastbourne, after she had chosen to disregard his perfectly reasonable explanation that he had dropped his fob watch and was looking for it under her seat.

  His wife now directed her whimpering noises to him, which after some delay he managed to comprehend, and as Diva finally arrived she was just in time to hear his interpretation.

  ‘I think the memsahib is asking if you would join our team for the bridge tournament, Padre,’ he ventured.

  Coming up behind him, Diva could have uttered a scream of rage and frustration, had she been capable of any utterance other than a vague gasping sound. However, as if she had offered up a silent prayer which had instantly been answered, she listened to the Padre’s response with a mixture of wonder and disbelief.

  ‘I’m afraid I must decline, Major. I just met Mistress Coles the noo, and she asked me to join her and Mistress Plaistow. Naturally, I accepted.’

  Chapter 16

  So it was that the morrow found the Mapp-Flints still two members short of a bridge team. Upon visiting the library they discovered that the application list for the bridge club was indeed already fully subscribed, but they contrived to slip their names in at an awkward angle halfway up. As for the separate list for the bridge tournament, Irene had wasted no time: ‘Rev. and Mrs Bartlett’ had been inserted after ‘Mrs Plaistow and Miss Coles’. Intriguingly, though, both ‘Mr and Mrs Wyse’ and ‘Mr and Mrs Pillson’ simply had ‘+2’ written after each entry.

  ‘What the devil does that mean?’ the Major demanded.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Elizabeth admitted reluctantly, for to be unsure of the intentions of others was as near intolerable as made no difference.

  ‘I s’pose it means they each have a team, but haven’t got around to putting in the names,’ her husband proffered.

  ‘It may do. There again it may just be Lulu up to her tricks again. I smell a rat.’

  Still pondering the possible sinister ramifications of these cryptic entries, they wandered away. Major Benjy eyed the inviting prospect of the Trader’s Arms, but quickly abandoned any hopes which might lie in that direction. While he was still shaking his head ruefully at the thought of what might have been, they rounded a corner and came face to face with the Wyses.

  ‘Such a pleasure,’ Mr Wyse commented gallantly as he bowed to Elizabeth.

  ‘Any news?’ Susan asked, and then, before anybody could suggest any alternative topic, ‘Isn’t it exciting about the bridge tournament, though? Everybody’s talking about it.’

  ‘So they should be,’ Elizabeth replied earnestly. ‘Goodness me, I can’t remember when something so wonderful last happened in Tilling.’

  Unfortunately her attempts at sincerity were scarcely more successful than her experiments with irony, but this was by now so well understood among her regular interlocutors that they aroused little comment. In consequence, her occa
sional messages of sympathy and support tended to be mentally filed away by her audience in that same category as claims by residents of just about anywhere in North London actually to reside in Hampstead.

  ‘Indeed,’ murmured Mr Wyse, ‘quite capital.’

  ‘Talking of which,’ she went on, breaking out once more her sweetest of smiles, the one which displayed an alarming expanse of teeth, ‘Benjy-boy and I were just in the library adding our own poor names to the roll of honour which seems to be intent on entering the tournament, and we weren’t sure whether you and Susan had teammates yet or not?’

  Mr and Mrs Wyse flashed a quick glance of alarm at each other.

  ‘Because if not,’ Elizabeth pressed on, ‘we would be very honoured to have your company.’

  ‘A charming idea,’ Mr Wyse said smilingly, ‘but unfortunately we are already promised elsewhere.’

  Susan squeezed his arm in a brief yet significant manner, and they both quickly moved on.

  The Mapp-Flints proceeded along the High Street and paused by Elizabeth’s favourite observation platform (the one not endowed by Lucia). They sat on the bench and gazed out over the salt flats to the marshes beyond, where Grebe lurked in perpetual danger of flooding, and to which in Elizabeth’s mind they had been banished to reluctant exile by Lucia.

  ‘Of course!’ she said suddenly. ‘I think I’ve got it, Benjy.’

  ‘Ah yes?’ he asked, abandoning his efforts to squint sideways at the fine female form of a lingering hiker.

  ‘I’ve seen through her little plan,’ she told him. ‘She is persuading everybody to pair off, leaving us without anybody to play with.’

  ‘But to what end, old girl?’ asked the Major.

  Really the man could be quite dense sometimes, his wife thought.

  ‘So that only they and we will be left, silly, and we’ll have to agree to play with them. That way she gets the best of both worlds. If our team does well she’ll tell everyone that she and Georgie did very well indeed because they had to carry us, and if we do badly they’ll blame us and say they could have done much better by themselves.’