David Nobbs - Ostrich Country

But this was different, looking at girls from the protection of a bird sanctuary, watching out for Mrs Hassett, squinting through his binoculars, 8 × 35, a good magnification for bird-watching and not too bad for voyeurism. He felt ashamed, yet continued. And was rewarded. At 5.45 he saw her, changing in preparation for the evening’s duties. He fancied he could see her breasts—small, neat breasts. He was almost certain that she was applying powder to her armpits. He saw a flash of something pale, her back perhaps, as she twisted into a dress.

‘You find Mrs Hassett attractive, no?’

Tarragon jumped and scrambled guiltily to his feet. He blushed.

‘I startled you?’

It was Alphonse.

‘Yes, you — er — you did. I think there’s a swallow’s nest under the eaves.’

‘Now to me, Mrs Hassett, she has not my sort. She is a little, how you say, not so enough effeminate. A little what I would say Parisian.’

‘I thought I saw a hawk of some kind flying past the hotel.’

‘Me, I like more the country girl, yes? In my native Provence, there they have the roundness, how you say, swollen. Oh, monsieur, you should see them.’

Tarragon had no wish just then to see the swollen girls of Alphonse’s native Provence. He set off towards the hotel, with Alphonse at his heels.

‘The swallows were rather early this year,’ he said.

‘You are a coal mine of interesting information, Mr Clump,’ said Alphonse. ‘I think perhaps my information also to Mrs Hassett and your family will be quite interesting, too.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I see you by the wood. I think “he is up to some bad”. I am very interesting. I watch. I think, this is a man with pictures of the excellent Miss Blossom in his portmanteau.’

‘How the devil …’

‘One of the chambermaids, she is not so discreet. What a shame.’

‘All lies. I shall report you.’

Tarragon stalked angrily to his room and opened his suitcase. His pictures of Miss Blossom had gone.

The rain belt drifted in unexpectedly from Northern France and reached Uxbridge during tea.

‘George,’ said his mother. ‘We forgot to show him Edgar’s book.’

‘Oh yes,’ said his father. ‘You know your Great Great Uncle Edgar lives in Suffolk.’

‘I didn’t even know I had a Great Great Uncle Edgar.’

‘He’s the brother of your father’s grandfather, and he lives in Suffolk. And we quite forgot until the other day that we’ve got a book of his, all about Suffolk.’

‘What’s it called?’

‘Suffolk.’

Diana snorted.

‘Well anyway,’ his mother continued, ‘it’s got quite a long passage about your hotel in it.’

‘Big deal,’ said Diana.

‘Well it’s interesting,’ said Pegasus.

‘Oh bloody fascinating,’ said Diana. ‘Far more interesting than Vietnam or the under-developed countries or non-proliferation or neo-Nazism, which is building up in this country too, you know, or you would if you had eyes to see, or whether organized religion has any relevance to modern life, or the function of the artist in a bourgeois, materialist society. Far more bloody interesting.’ And she stormed out, slamming the door.

Try though he did Pegasus thought, thank goodness Tom Graveney isn’t here to see all this.

‘She’s going through a phase,’ said his mother.

‘I’d like to see that book,’ said Pegasus.

His mother fetched it for him. Suffolk, by E. Newton Baines.

‘The Goat and Thistle came by its name in the following somewhat unusual fashion. It was the custom of the vicar, one Arnold Holyoake, M.A., in an effort to combat the robust heathenism of his flock, to visit the tap rooms of the several alehouses in his parish.

‘So easy-going was the nature of the good divine, and so enfeebled his memory, that he invariably forgot the purpose that lay behind his visit. The gentle man of God, therefore, would appear to have learnt more of “Skittle-bowls” and “shove the penny” than his parishioners did of the Almighty.

‘One evening, his habitual amnesia heightened by a moderate consumption of strong liquor, he left his coat at the tavern and, wandering home in his shirt sleeves, had the misfortune to trip over an alder sapling and break his leg. He died of pneumonia but two days later.

‘When the coat was noticed by Mine Host Will Arnscott, an ancestor of the Big Tom Arnscott whose immense cricket hit was referred to on page 623, a small copy of the Bible fell from the pocket and opened at the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Ephesians. The inn became known as the Coat and Epistle, a name which soon became corrupted to Goat and Thistle.’

‘Very interesting,’ said Pegasus.

‘I thought you’d find it interesting,’ said his mother.

It was still raining when Tarragon Clump got up on Sunday morning but soon the rain moved out over the sluggish oily sea. Tarragon went down to the river for a sail.

The tide was out, and the river was at its best, secret down there below its rims of mud. Tarragon’s spirits rose. He handled the little dinghy well. He got everything he could out of the wind, the wind and he were friends, his face was salty, he would go back and have a drink in the bar, and invite Mrs Hassett up to London for dinner one evening. There would be time to ask her while she was serving him.

He walked up the lane and then across the heath. Tony Hassett served him.

‘Nice morning,’ he said amiably.

After their Sunday dinner his father suggested a car trip. They went to the National Gallery.

‘Rotten luck that chap Turner had with his weather,’ said his father.

Tarragon Clump had a puncture less than a mile from the hotel. Damn damn damn.

He drove back aggressively, taking it out on the car, sweating freely, cursing the Sunday drivers with surprisingly violent oaths.

Simon and Paula went to evensong. Canon Mulgrave was on form.

Through Brentford and Shenfield and Chelmsford and Ipswich sped Pegasus towards the beckoning sea, past filling stations and drab dead houses, past grimy cafés and fields full of dead old cars, thinking that this time there was no need to feel excited about seeing Mrs Hassett, from now on he would devote himself solely to the learning of his art, and the last thing you wanted to do was to get tangled up with a married woman.

He looked forward to it all. The steady routine, the heat, the moments of furious activity when the orders came thick and fast, the hearty swearing of his colleagues. Alphonse, convinced that all the English were pigs. Tonio, convinced that all the English were pigs. Pegasus, the Englishman who would prove them wrong and one day outshine them both.

So far he had performed only routine tasks, flexing his taste buds. Soon he would create a great masterpiece — his own. He was so eager to get back to work that he didn’t even dread Rose Lodge.

They had some cake for him, and some tinned pears.

‘What sort of a time did you have?’ said Bill.

‘What did you do?’ said Brenda.

‘Tell us all about it,’ said Bill.

There wasn’t much to tell, but what there was he told. They listened as if it was the most exciting story they had ever heard.

‘I expect you were sorry to leave,’ said Brenda.

‘Though glad to get back,’ said Bill.

‘Yes,’ said Pegasus.

‘We’ll have that picnic soon,’ said Bill.

Even the faint scratching of his nail on her hand or the touch of her lips rubbed across his had been vibrant and thrilling. It had been lovely to live through that thrill. Now these same gestures were already memories, mere expressions of gratitude. And although he knew that this was how it always was, he asked himself whether his desire had all been an illusion.