Tom Sharpe - Blott on the Landscape

“You know what I mean,” said Hoskins. “He’s no more an expert on motorways than I am.”

Sir Giles pursed his lips. “If he’s such a dimwit why did the Minister send him up? He’s given him full authority to negotiate.”

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, is what I say.”

“I daresay there’s something in that,” said Sir Giles. “So you don’t think there’s anything to worry about?”

Hoskins smiled. “Not a thing in the world. He’ll nosey around a bit and then he will do just what we want. I tell you this bloke takes the biscuit. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.”

Sir Giles considered this mixture of metaphors and found it to his taste. “I hear Lord Leakham’s still foaming at the mouth.”

“He can’t wait to re-open the Enquiry. Says he’s going to put the motorway through the Gorge if it’s the last thing he does.”

“It probably will be if Maud has anything to do with it,” said Sir Giles. “She’s in a very nasty frame of mind.”

“There’s nothing much she can do about it once the decision is taken,” said Hoskins.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

Sir Giles got up and stared out of the window and considered his alternative plan. “You don’t think this fellow Dundridge will advise against the Gorge?” he asked finally.

“Lord Leakham wouldn’t listen to him if he did. He’s got it into his head you tried to poison him,” said Hoskins and went back to his office leaving Sir Giles to ponder on the best-laid plans of mice and men. It was all very well for Hoskins to talk confidently about nincompoops from the Ministry. He had nothing to lose. Sir Giles had. His seat in Parliament for one thing. Well, if the worst came to the worst and Maud carried out her threat he could always get another. It was worth the risk. Reassured by the thought that Lord Leakham had made up his mind to route the motorway through the Gorge Sir Giles went out to lunch.

At Handyman Hall Lady Maud’s gracious approach had worked wonders. Like some delicate plant in need of water, Dundridge had blossomed out. He had come expecting to meet Sir Giles but, after the first shock of finding himself alone in a large house with a large woman had worn off, Dundridge began to enjoy himself. For the first time since he had arrived in Worfordshire he was being taken seriously. Lady Maud treated him as a person of consequence.

“It is so good to know that you have come to take over from Lord Leakham,” Lady Maud said as she led him down a corridor to the drawing-room.

Dundridge said he hadn’t actually come to take over. “I’m simply here in an advisory capacity,” he said modestly.

Lady Maud smiled knowingly. “Oh quite, and we all know what that means, don’t we?” she murmured, drawing Dundridge into a warm complicity he found quite delightful.

Dundridge relaxed on the sofa. “The Minister is most anxious that the proposed motorway should fit in with the needs of local residents as much as possible.”

Maud smothered a snarl with another smile. The notion that she was a local resident made her blood boil, but she had set out to humour this snivelling civil servant and humour him she would. “And there is the landscape to consider too,” she said. “The Cleene Forest is one of the few remaining examples of virgin woodland left in England. It would be a terrible shame to spoil it with a motorway, don’t you think?”

Dundridge didn’t think anything of the sort but he knew better than to say so, and besides this seemed as good an opportunity as any to test out his theory of a tunnel. “I think I’ve found a solution to the problem,” he said. “Of course it’s only an idea, you understand, and it has no official standing, but it should be possible to build a tunnel under the Cleene Hills.” He stopped. Lady Maud was staring at him intently. “Of course, as I say, it’s only an idea…”

Lady Maud had risen and for one terrible moment Dundridge thought she was about to assault him. She lurched forward and took his hand. “Oh how wonderful,” she said. “How absolutely brilliant. You dear, dear man,” and she sat down beside him on the sofa and gazed into his face ecstatically. Dundridge blushed and looked down at his shoes. He was quite unused to married women taking his hand, gazing into his face ecstatically and calling him their dear, dear man. “It’s nothing. Only an idea.”

“A splendid idea,” said Lady Maud, engulfing him in a blast of Lavender Water. Out of the corner of his eye Dundridge could see her bosom quivering beneath a nosegay of marigolds. He shrank into the sofa.

“Of course, there would have to be a feasibility study…” he began but Lady Maud brushed his remark aside.

“Of course there would, but that would take time wouldn’t it?”

“Months,” said Dundridge.

“Months!”

“Six months at least.”

“Six months!” Lady Maud relinquished his hand with a sigh and contemplated a respite of six months. In six months so much could happen and if she had anything to do with it a great deal would. Giles would throw his weight behind the tunnel or she would know the reason why. She would drum up support from conservationists across the country. In six months she would do wonders. And she owed it all to this insubstantial little man with plastic shoes. Now that she came to look at him she realized she had misjudged him. There was something almost appealing about his vulnerability. “You’ll stay to lunch,” she said.

“Well… er… I really…”

“Of course you will,” said Lady Maud. “I insist. And you can tell Giles all about the tunnel when he gets back this afternoon.” She rose and, leaving Dundridge to wonder how it was that Sir Giles who had been coming back at eleven had delayed his return until the afternoon, Lady Maud swept from the room. Left to himself, Dundridge sat stunned by the enthusiasm his suggestion had unleashed. If Sir Giles’ reaction was as favourable as that of his wife he would have made some influential friends. And rich ones. He ran his fingers appreciatively over the moulding of a rosewood table. So this was how the other half lived, he thought, before realizing that the cliché was inappropriate. The other two per cent. Useful people to know.

Sir Giles returned from Worford at four to find Lady Maud in a remarkably good mood.

“I had a visit from such a strange young man,” she told him when he enquired what the matter was.

“Oh really?”

“He was called Dundridge. He was from the Ministry of the -”

“Dundridge? Did you say Dundridge?”

“Yes. Such a very interesting man…”

“Interesting? I understood he was a nincom… oh never mind. What did he have to say for himself?”

“Oh, this and that,” said Lady Maud, gratified by her husband’s agitation.

“What do you mean ‘this and that’?”

“We talked about the absurdity of putting a motorway through the Gorge,” said Lady Maud.

“I suppose he’s in favour of the Ottertown route.”

Lady Maud shook her head. “As a matter of fact he isn’t.”

“He isn’t?” said Sir Giles, now thoroughly alarmed. “What the hell is he in favour of then?”

Lady Maud savoured his concern. “He has in mind a third route,” she said. “One that avoids both Ottertown and the Gorge.”

Sir Giles turned pale. “A third route? But there isn’t a third route. There can’t be. He’s not thinking of going through the Forest, is he? It’s an area of designated public beauty.”

“Not through it. Under it,” said Lady Maud triumphantly.

“Under it?”

“A tunnel. A tunnel under the Cleene Hills. Don’t you think that’s a marvellous idea.”

Sir Giles sat down heavily. He was looking quite ill.