Simon Brett - Mrs. Pargeter's pound of flesh

He had at first tried to refuse payment for his services, saying, ‘After all, when I think how much I owe your late husband, it’s the least I can do for his widow to-’

But Mrs Pargeter had interrupted him firmly, insisting she always would pay for everything. ‘Neither a lender nor a borrower be,’ she had said, quoting another of the late Mr Pargeter’s regular sayings (though he may perhaps have borrowed that one from someone else).

So it was that she had organized Gary to drive her from Brotherton Hall to King’s Cross, and to have the limousine on hand to return her after the meeting with Tom O’Brien.

Gary, who was used to ferrying Mrs Pargeter to more elegant venues than the greasy spoon, had been far too discreet to pass any comment.

‘No, but give me a bit more detail,’ Mrs Pargeter insisted. ‘What kind of job would your wife least like you to know she was doing?’

‘Not absolutely clear what you mean, Mrs Pargeter.’

‘Well, for instance, would the worst thing you could find out be that… that she was on the game, for example?’

‘I wouldn’t like that much,’ Gary conceded judiciously, ‘but that wouldn’t be the worst.’

‘What would then?’

‘The worst,’ he said, ‘the absolute worst — the thing that’d really make me divorce her on the spot and never see her again — would be if…’

‘Yes?’

‘If I found she’d gone and joined the police.’

‘Ah. Yes. Well, of course.’

Somehow Mrs Pargeter didn’t think she was going to get much stimulus to her thinking about Jenny Hargreaves’ job from Gary.

On her return to Brotherton Hall, she bumped into an ecstatic Kim Thurrock — or it might be more accurate to say an ecstatic Kim Thurrock bumped into her. Kim was rushing from the gym, where she’d spent an hour increasing her weight-training circuits and repetitions, to the swimming-pool, where she still had thirty lengths to complete.

The cause of her ecstasy was quickly revealed. ‘I didn’t see you this morning. Do you know, Melita, at the Seven-Thirty Weigh-In, I’d lost another ounce and a half!’

Mrs Pargeter uttered suitable expressions of amazement.

‘I mean, I really do feel thinner. Don’t you reckon I look thinner?’

Kim stood sideways, holding her tummy in, for her friend’s appraisal.

Mrs Pargeter found it difficult to come up with an opinion. She’d never given much thought to Kim Thurrock’s figure — it had always seemed perfectly all right to her — so she had difficulty judging to what extent (if any) it had changed.

And Kim’s now-permanent uniform of Mind Over Fatty Matter leotard and leggings (oh yes, and presumably exercise bra) didn’t make assessment any easier. The patterns on the garments looked wonderful on Sue Fisher herself, and on her team of aerobic robots, but then presumably they had the kind of bodies that would look good in bin-liners. On ordinary bodies, like Kim Thurrock’s, however, the pattern seemed to have a different effect; almost at if it had been expressly designed to accentuate any minor bulges.

As she learned more about the Mind Over Fatty Matter approach to marketing, Mrs Pargeter found this conjecture increasingly plausible. It would be in character for Sue Fisher to promote garments which actually made people look fatter. They would preserve that all-important distance between the ideal and the reality, encourage her punters’ basic dislike of their own bodies, and ensure that they bought even more Mind Over Fatty Matter products to make up for their shortcomings.

‘You look very nice, Kim love,’ said Mrs Pargeter comfortingly.

‘ Nice?’ Kim Thurrock echoed. ‘But do I look thin?’

What did the truth matter under such circumstances? ‘Very thin, love,’ Mrs Pargeter reassured her.

‘Oh, good.’ But Kim still looked uncertain.

‘Really terrific. I bet you’re learning to love that body of yours now, aren’t you, love?’

‘Good heavens, no! I’m still such a mess. There’s still so much to do.’

So the Mind Over Fatty Matter programme of stimulating feelings of inadequacy was still doing its stuff.

‘But do you know the other wonderful thing that happened today?’ Kim asked.

‘No,’ said Mrs Pargeter, who didn’t.

‘I bought a prepublication copy of the Mind Over Fatty Matter Book of Warm Salads…’

‘Well, well…’

‘And do you know what?’

‘No,’ said Mrs Pargeter, who didn’t.

‘Sue Fisher actually signed it for me!’

‘I didn’t know she was still here.’

‘Well, she certainly was this morning. And she’s so generous. She signed books for practically everyone.’

After they’d paid for them, Mrs Pargeter thought cynically. Curious, she asked, ‘What did she write in yours?’

‘“Keep trying, Kim!”’ her friend replied proudly.

Clever. Never write ‘Well done’. Never imply the process is complete. Because, of course, a slimmer who’s achieved her goal is going to stop buying Mind Over Fatty Matter products, isn’t she?

‘Anyway, I must dash. I’ve still got these thirty lengths to do.’ Kim stopped, suddenly solicitous. ‘And how’s your programme going, Melita?’

‘Programme?’

‘Yes. Fitness, slimming, you know…’

‘Ah. Well, I’m doing as much as the allergy allows me to,’ she replied in a bravely martyred tone.

‘Oh, you do have rotten luck,’ Kim sympathized.

‘I know, but… well…’

‘C’est la vie,’ Kim supplied, drawing once again on her evening classes.

‘Exactly. Still, I live in hope,’ Mrs Pargeter continued with spirit. ‘Only ate half my portion at lunchtime today.’

‘Oh. Well done,’ said Kim Thurrock.

Mrs Pargeter ate her full portion of dinner in the ‘Allergy Room’ that evening. Though still anxious about the news she was expecting from Truffler Mason, she could see no point in spoiling two meals in a row.

Anyway, she owed it to Gaston to do justice to his Entrecote a la Bordelaise and Crepe a la Mode d’Orleans. It seemed a pity to let any of the Crozes Hermitage go to waste either. And since Gaston had cooked some petits fours specially to go with her coffee, it would have been churlish not to try them.

In spite of her forebodings, she was in a state of excitement. At last her investigation seemed to be getting somewhere. Truffler would soon be able to tell her whether the body she had seen was that of Jenny Hargreaves.

And then of course she was due to find out more from Lindy Galton in the Dead Sea Mud Bath unit at nine-fifteen.

She lingered over her last petit four, checking her watch in a desultory way and waiting till she heard the nervous giggling of guests scuttling to the gym to experience their day’s final humiliation at the Nine O’Clock Weigh-In.

The sounds subsided, and Brotherton Hall was filled with a silence thick as fog, while Mrs Pargeter made her way to the Dead Sea Mud Bath unit.

Down there, too, all was nearly silent. Only the soft swish of the rotor blade in its tank of mud provided a rhythm that gave texture to the silence.

The lights were on, but there was no sign of anyone in the central area surrounded by the four cubicles.

All the doors were shut. Mrs Pargeter opened one and looked in. The cubicle contained nothing but its spotlessly gleaming bath.

The contents of the second were identical.

The third cubicle, however, was full of Dead Sea Mud.

It wasn’t just the bath that was full. The outline of that had been lost in the brown sludge which lay thickly over the floor and oozed through the opened doorway to Mrs Pargeter’s neatly shod feet.

She moved back from the encroaching tide and looked towards the control console on the wall. The ‘Fill’ switch was in its ‘Off position. From the sluice at the bath’s head a single stalactite of mud depended.